Tales of Decracination 3

 

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I can't believe I slept most of this morning. No, I did not have any strange dreams. I took my temperature. It's normal without Naproxen so I'm back to work tomorrow, which is Thanksgiving day. In the evening we're having tutoring over at Oak Gardens Plaza and Friday there's tutoring and meetings. We have some high school kids who came up Langley for tutoring and the math tutors plus Miriam who went to Oak Gardens said they had customers. Cheyenne and Miriam are also talking about after school art classes. If this keeps up we will need a building.

 

Yes, I'm thankful to Dr. Kathleen FitzRoy for getting the goons off my back and for the nudge to see a physician. I get my blood pressure meds next week. It's just a dihuretic, a water pill.

 

Around noon Dr. Morgan (not Reverend Morgan), our chaplain came by and I asked him to read the Psalms with me. It's the most comfortable way for him to pray. He said he was glad I was feeling better. He talked about passion and faith burning themselves out. It was good advice since Rose Among Thorns is a long haul operation and besides the best is yet to come.

 

I need to talk to Soledad and Raylina about arranging a meeting with Lisette. She's the Bublawyao that Eyes uses to guard him. I think I can convince her to switch sides. I know I can. It is after all just a matter of faith.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Apt #2J

Freedom Executive Park

Langley, VA

Point Two-Five

 

 

 

Dear all,

 

"You want what?" Raylina nearly spilled her coffee all over the table of the apartment she shares with her twin sister, their children and one or two nefews and nieces.

 

"I want an audience with Lisette, the Santera priestess," I replied.

 

"That woman's a witch!" complained Soledad who crossed herself.

 

"She's a Santera, a follower of an Afro Cuban religion called Santeria and sometimes Voudun or Hoodoo," I answered. That she also engages in magic and may be quite effective at it is something I judiciously left out.

 

"I need to meet with her on neutral ground to arrange a meeting at her apartment or I could call her if you have her number," I said. Email would be another idea, but Soledad and Raylina do not have the internet.

 

"Do you know what she would do to you?" Soledad asked me.

 

"She'd do nothing," I answered. "My God is bigger than her Orishas. My God made the Orishas."

 

"What's an Orisha?" asked Raylina.

 

"They're demons," answered Soledad.

 

"They're powerful spirits or perhaps faces or aspects of the deity," I replied. "They're not inherently evil. They permit evil but will be happier to promote good. That is why they are on my side."

 

"I thought you drive out demons," said Soledad.

 

"The Orishas are not demons," I answered. "Now where can I find Lisette?"

 

"This is crazy," Raylina protested.

 

This was going nowhere. I knew Lisette needed herbs for her magic and items for offerings bought only at a bodega and food and liquor, but DC is a very big city. Even the neighborhood surrounding Oak Gardens Plaza is fairly large.

 

Still I had to start somewhere so I worked my way down from the convenience store which my tutors and I patronize past the small groceries to the one with candles in the windows. I asked the proprietor if she knew a priestess named Lisette. The proprietor pretended not to know English. I switched to Lukumi which is one of my languages. I watched the proprietor's eyes swell like eggs as she crossed herself. "Don't worry," I switched back to English. "What I said was trivial and we both know it? Now how can I find Lisette?"

 

I met Lisette in the McDonalds across the street. I swear it was the grubbiest McDonalds in all of DC. Lisette was as dark as I was but much bigger with shoulders wide as a football full back's and huge hands a thick neck and ample droopy breasts. Around her neck was a string of red and white beads called ekeles. "Shango!" I thought. This would make my job that much easier.

 

"Why are you here?" Lisette greeted me as she sipped her coffee.

 

"We need to meet at your apartment. I have something very important to tell you," I continued.

 

"Do you know where I live?"

 

"Yes, and I wish I didn't," I confessed.

 

"You know if you do something stupid, you'll pay for it with your life."

 

"I'm not going to do anything stupid," I assured her.

 

And we were off. Lisette's apartment was not as minimalist like Eyes. Her apartment had old comfortable furniture and a slightly musty odor I could not quite place.

 

"You have forgotten," Lisette asked.

 

"I'm from a different tradition."

 

"You are a little Oreo."

 

"I'm an Uh-Oh Oreo," I responded.

 

"What is that?"

 

"White on the outside chocolate on the inside."

 

Lisette laughed. Then I came out with my proposal. "I want you to switch to our side."

 

"What side is that?"

 

"Rose Among Thorns. We are perparing to take down Eyes and his gang through a popular uprising."

 

"You are preparing to get yourselves killed."

 

"No," I answered. "HaShem is bigger than Shango. Shango gives you fairly pain free access to magic, but my magic when I do use it and pay the price for using it is more powerful...."

 

I had a feeling something strange had happened. Lisette had a machete in her hands. Those big hands must be awfully fast I thought. I raised my hands and uttered the hundred and twenty-one letter name of HaShem. Lisette whirled around at the sound of breaking glass. On her Orisha altar all the candles were broken. There were bits of glass everywhere and the wax was torn in pieces. The altar cloths were signed and the offering dishes cracked.

 

"Can I help you clean that up?" I asked.

 

"Pourquoi?" asked Lisette.

 

"I'm sorry about breaking your stuff, but I'm not an Oreo or a dilettante. I'm sincere and my movement has strength."

 

"What do you want?" asked Lisette.

 

"We are going to stage a popular uprising against the supermarket. My followers here and I will form a ring of fire, a human ring to prevent escape and then the police will come in and arrest everyone.

 

"I'll need Shango's help and yours to let the police in here to get Eyes and the other top gangsters. I can take care of the guns and weapons. It will cost me to use the Holy Name again but I can use it. I need you for backup. In exchange, Rose Among Thorns will see that every person placed on parole or house arrest or probation will get an education and job training so that they can do honest work."

 

Lisette sniffled. She said something softly in Lukumi an apology for trashing the altar. "If you look over there on the chair, you'll see a package from the bodega. I wasn't sure if I bought the right thing. My knowledge of Orishas is a bit dated and religion changes with time." Past lives do come in handy at times.

 

I helped Lisette clean up her defiled altar and we got out the new candles and blessed them. She even sent me to the supermarket to buy plantains and brown sugar and flowers and corn meal. She let me back in to the building welcoming me in front of the whole busy Supermarket. I explained how Rose Among Thorns would ask for clemency for as many of the arrested as possible. We'll send for interns from Upstate New York where our base is so there will be enough tutors and workers....."

 

"And what about the girlfriends and wives and children?" asked Lisette.

 

"The same deal applies to them. All the tutoring and job training and enrichment we can provide. Rose Among Thorns is about learning and kindness. The creed you worship means very little though I do appreciate magic, especially African magic."

 

Lisette put her arms around me. She brewed me a special herbal brew and we made a blessing over her new altar.

 

Needless to say I'll be staying overnight in Raylina and Soledad's apartment in Building #14. I'll try and catch some rest Friday afternoon since I have that day off. It looks like we have about eighty people willing to form the ring of fire. Hopefully that number will grow.

 

Alise Liddell

Blessed by HaShem God of Hosts

Apt 3L

Building #14

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

We had a record eighteen tutors tonight at Oak Gardens Plaza. I held one ring of fire meeting but mostly was in our makeshift tutorie in the "Community Center," a dilapidated structure just up the block from the infamous Supermarket. We had the little kids in one corner learning multiplication tables, the bigger kids working on fractions, and the teens and adults doing mainly algebra. In another corner there was reading and grammar tutoring and an instant resume writing clinic too.

 

About an hour in to the night's tutoring, in walked two thuggish teenage boys who went over to the Coke machine in the corner. This machine was growing cobwebs and probably hasn't had a Coke in it in six or seven years. Still, the boys kicked it stuck coins in it, swore at it and then asked what we were doing in their building. They laughed and called it "Oreo training camp." Florence told them their mammas would be ashamed of them.

 

"All you gonna ever earn is chump change. Look at what Ms. Florence does for a living...how's the store, Ms. Florence?" sing songed the smaller thug.

 

"Then there's Soledad who empties bed pans and wipes old people's butts. If you want to do that for a living, this place is where to go."

 

"How about all your brothers who are dead," I said.

 

The thuggish boys snorted uncomfortably.

 

"No risk, no gain," said the bigger boy and then he and his fellow thug took their leave. Florence swore something ugly under her breath. "Those are our future students," I thought.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Apt 8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Last night was my first "Legal Affairs" meeting. I missed tutoring or even discussing the upcoming Ring of Fire. Legal Affairs was started by Reverend Morgan who impressed with both the mininstry and tutoring work, especially the tutoring, got together with some of his Ethical Humanist congregants who are wealthy professional types. Many of the lawyers work for Legal Aid corporation which provides lawyers to poor defendents. We got together to make sure that everyone whom we arrest gets good legal representation. The goal of the Ring of Fire is only to send the worst of the worst to jail. The ordinary watchers and runners and even those doing the packaging upstairs need to return to Oak Gardens Plaza on probation, suspended sentence, or house arrest. They use an electronic monitor for that. They put it on the prisoner's ankle and send him or her home and he or she can only go to work or school and maybe a little shopping but otherwise has to stay home.

 

The other reason we need Legal Affairs is to make sure that the wives and girlfriends and daughters (and husbands and boyfriends and sons) are spared the worst ravages of RICO. RICO is an antiracketeering act and under it any assets that are profits of crime can be confiscated by the government. That means that some women may lose the cars they use to get to work, their furniture, their jewelry, the money in their bank accounts should they have those etc... We wanted to make sure this DID NOT happen. After all Rose Among Thorns will be delivering law enforcment the top members of the gang that runs the Supermarket. Sparing the wives and girlfriends seems a reasonable quid pro quo.

 

Anyway, this was a long meeting. I had to do a lot of explaining about Rose Among Thorns. It is at times like this that I wished I had a real call to start a ministry. I feel so clumsy and out of place. Still I got through the meeting and slept like a stone last night. This morning I am at work again. Tonight, I do more tutoring and talk up the Ring of Fire. Dr. Karch plans to load the phone numbers for the Ring this weekend. I'm glad he's taking time out from his work. He says he wants the Ring of Fire to happen before the Physics 207 final at Cornell but that is not until the 20th of December.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I came out of Chabad in Bethesda after services just in time to see a very beat up and road salt eaten van parked outside with New York plates that said "Tompkins County" underneath them. It was Dr. Karch and a man I did not know and his four year old daughter, Tova, who is one of the famous or should I see infamous Karch quadruplets.

 

"You're not sick!" Tova greeted me.

 

"Not yet," I told her.

 

"Saying the magic word is going to make you sick," taunted Tova.

 

"What is she talking about?" asked the male stranger, a man with a weasily face, a pointed beard, a ratty ski jacket over a chamois shirt that had been in the machine shop or other sloppy place but probably not a kitchen one too many times. The stranger was of course white or blotchy pink and winter paele would have been a better description.

 

"Mysticism," answered Dr. Karch. "It's part and parcel of dealing with this crowd. I think they are on to something. I just wish I knew what but it's not my area of expertise and they tend to behave rationally despite what they believe. Come on Alise, we're giving you a ride to Choke Gardens."

 

"What are you doing in Washington?" it was finally my turn to ask my friend questions. For those of you who don't know Dr. Karch, he is Luchi-Xara's landlord and he was Naama Roth's physics professor her freshman year. His speciality is low temperature superconductivity. He is a big man with a full sandy colored beard and mustache and head of soft shiney hair that covres a face that lost its battle with acne when he was an undergraduate.

 

"We thought we'd pay you a little visit. Luchi-Xara has her hands full with an Indian girl from a parallel earth who just appeared in Rapid City, South Dakota of all places. I had to look that one up on a map." Dr. Karch shook his head.

 

"We have something in the back of the van. Dr. Paisan tipped me off about what you were doing here in Washington, DC. If Rose Among Thorns really digs in its heals, we could increase the number of science majors or at least students who survive high school physics or maybe even my course." Dr. Karch smiled. "It's not fun teaching students who are not prepared. It can't be fun at noncompetitive colleges. That's why I'm helping you."

 

Dr. Paisan then introduced himself. He works at DC Metropolitan, a local community college. That means he teaches a lot of noncalculus based intro physics. He is sick and tired of kids who can't do the algebra that even high school level physics requires. I like Angels who have a bonified self interest in what we do. I had a very good feeling I was going to get angeled but I did not know how until we arrived at Oak Gardens Plaza.

 

Then Dr. Paisan and Dr. Karch presented me with a gift. It was a box of small electronic cameras especially designed to shoot mpeg files which means movies. Why would we want such a thing? Dr. Paisan explained as if I did not all ready know that we would need a film of the Ring of Fire.

 

Dr. Karch and Dr. Paisan stayed on throughout the afternoon to watch the tutoring and enrichment for the kids and adults who did not need tutoring. Dr. Paisan even offered to help out. We had two physics customers. Dr. Karch did some work with the enrichment electronics and helped a man named Mitchell fix his car. Dr. Karch loves to tinker.

 

I was sorry to see the men go after they took Miriam, Soledad, Raylina, Florence, Cheyenne, and I out to dinner. William did not feel like going. He was praying with an old lady in building one whose daughter is dying of a ravaging wasting illness. I have a hunch both William and I may be speaking at a funeral soon. I hope it is not soon though.

 

Alise Liddell

Apt 8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Vijaya,

 

A one way Greyhound ticket from Missoula, Montana to Ithaca, New York costs $221. Flying is twice as much. I have the money and will buy Kelli the ticket should she choose to come to Ithaca. Vijaya you will have to handle shipping her stuff. You will also have to convince Kelli that Ithaca is a better future than Missoula. This isn't just moving off the reservation this time around. Naama is right to be cautious. Do you think Kelli's grandmother will let her go? This thing will be done more easily if it is amicable.

 

Alise Liddel

Translator Grade 3C

Oak Gardens Plaza

Building #14

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

We may have had thirty tutors tonight at Oak Gardens Plaza. I did not see them. I could not go. I met with law enforcement instead. Do you want to know the day and the hour? You won't. Halacha says we do not kindle flames until after Shabbos.

 

I have borrowed some books from Rabbi Simons. He does not approve of what I am doing, but he is glad to see me learning. By tomorrow at sundown I will begin fasting. Lisette wanted to annoint me but I had to say no. HaShem is jealous of smaller deities and powerful spirits. It has to be just me and Him. When I call, I will need His answer loud and clear.

 

I also met with my Dr. at Walter Reed tonight. I will probably need some sort of medical intervention when this is over. Dr. Karch can rest easy too. He can give his Physics 207 final in peace.

 

Alise Liddell

Apt 8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

 

It began. How do you want me to start this letter. The sky was turquoise. It was past sunset but still twilight when I dialed the number which in turn reached the central dialing program at Dr. Karch's home in the Belle Shermane neighborhood of Ithaca, New York. The central dialer would dial to over two hundred cell phones and hopefully most of those with phones would get my prerecorded message and heed the call. This is HaShem's doing as much as my own.

 

I was not sure what would happen as I walked toward the supermarket. From all around the complex, I could see mainly women and children approaching. It took those guarding the supermarket a while to figure out that both they and their entire building was surrounded. They also did not know that law enforcement was waiting behind a shopping center about half a mile away. The central dialer had reached them as well and they were on the way.

 

Meanwhile two of the larger enforcers the kind armed with AK-47's and/or Uzis, serious weaponry for serious business, emerged from Building #17. They walked passed what were now panicky customers who realized they too were trapped in the ring. The enforcers raised their weapons. I stepped toward them. They did not expect this. I removed a big red and white scarf from my neck, raised my arms, and waved it in the air and then slowly, loudly, and clearly pronounced the hundred and twenty one letter name of HaShem.

 

There was silence that seemed to take forever. Then there were strange popping noises. I knew this was not shooting and there was the sound of breaking glass. One of the enforcers screamed. A driver trapped in the ring started his engine. I walked over to him and asked him to remain calm. I told him no one was going to get hurt. He could see for himself by looking at the gentleman with the semi-automatic weapon that was now made entirely of chocolate, good as candy, but useless as a weapon. "Hang on to your weapon. The kids may want to eat it," I told him.

 

Just then Eyes, his lieutennants, and Lisette emerged from the front door of Building #17. The door woman was lying on the pavement. Apparently the Holy Name had blown the door open so it only hung by one hinge.

 

"You stupid bitch why?" Eyes pleaded with Lisette.

 

"This is a stronger god," she asnwered.

 

"Yes, but you have demons, fucking demons."

 

"HaShem is stronger than demons," I answered just as the cops broke through the ring of fire. They had paddy wagons at the ready. Tonight there would be mass arrests. Monday we would be in court trying to save as many low level supermarket employees as possible.

 

So now ask me how I feel? Well I couldn't eat. Soledad looked me over and found I was running a fever of 102. Lisette brewed me some tea and I took Naproxen to break the fever. I'm supposed to meet my doctor at Walter Reed later this evening. Tonight people are setting off fire crackers in the empty parking lot in front of Building #17. Several families have come outside and are eating some kind of fried cake I can't handle. Now I know how Naama feels.

 

In the Community Center where we have some rudimentary computers attached to the net, William from Langley is uploading our Mpeg (electronic movies taken with digital cameras) of the raid and the ring of fire. Praise HaShem. The supermarket is dead!

 

Alise Liddell

Apt 3L

Building #14

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

I have a raging kidney and urinary tract infection. By the time I got to Walter Reed, I could hardly walk and I even threw up water. They put an IV in my arm and got a urine sample which came out bloody. That was scarey. They have me on intravenous antibiotics. That means there is a tube going in to my left arm pumping life saving medicine in to me. I also have had one session of dialysis where they take out your blood and clean it and put it back in to you. The doctors think my kidneys will probably bounce back. My personal physician told me that I will probably lose some kidney function due to this infection and that I am not to try what I tried again...probably ever but at least not for five or six more years.

 

This is the first time I've ever been in a hospital overnight. I was not even born in a hospital. The midwife came to my parents home in Port Au Spain, and my mother birthed me there.

 

Enough about me. Cheyenne and Miriam are lodging Lisette Dumont in our apartment back in Langley. Lisette is homeless at least temporarily since the police have sealsed off Building #17 as a "Crime Scene."

 

Today Lisette came to see me and bless me. She was horrified that magic, even holy magic, could make one so sick. I said it was the power in the magic. I asked if any one had eaten the chocolate guns yet. Lisette was not sure that was a good idea. I said it would be fine. Why waste good chocolate.

 

My parents called me on the cell phone and I talked to Dov as well. Then I called Marguerite. What a mistake that was! I asked her when we can have the dedication for Rose Among Thorns #8. She said that it was scheduled for Ardsley, New York which is where Jumana Malcha lives, on Christmas Day.

 

"Then what about Rose Among Thorns #9?" I asked.

 

"You're not ready."

 

"What do you mean....We took back Oak Gardens Plaza!" I nearly screamed.

 

"Who owns Oak Gardens Plaza?" Marguerite asked.

 

I had to admit I did not know. I thought it was a corporation somewhere or a landlord though I'd never seen him and his manager had let us use the community center for a tutorie.

 

"You need to do your homework," Marguerite told me.

 

You see why I say I don't hve a call!

 

Alise Liddell

Room 409

Blake Pavillion

Walter Reed Army Medical Center

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

I thought I'd let all of you know that I'm recovering at home. Well, actually I'm back in the apartment in Langley. Since I no longer need dialysis and am now on oral antibiotics, I don't need to be in a hospital. That said, I'm off from work until the new year.

 

Dr. Morgan, our chaplain, rented a roll away on which I could sleep. I am smaller than Lisette Dumont who currently has my bed. She still can't go back to Building #17. I'm not strong enough to spend whole days tutoring or working so I'm mainly in bed except for my constitutional before lunch. Each day I walk a little farther. When I am strong enough, I can walk to the store and buy groceries though Dr. Morgan, the chaplain, gave me a ride to get some food since I have to eat to regain my strength.

 

Except for a long nap in the afternoon and the fact that I sleep in a bit in the morning, I conduct business from the rollaway cot or out in the living room. The cell phone is glued to my ear. The lap top is open. I get phone message and emails all day long and also a stream of visitors who are glad to know I am on the mend and not contageous.

 

Yes, we are having services Sunday. Yes, we will need tutors in January and welcome students from local universities. Yes, I think a math enrichment activity in probability and statistics would be an excellent idea especially if it included examples from gambling. You get the idea.

 

At lunch, Dr. Morgan actually came by for a visit. He asked if I was OK. "As good as I can be," I told him. I was drinking bitter tea and eating a tuna and banana pepper sandwich on wheat bread, my favorite sandwich. The bitter tea is an herbal brew created by Lisette Dumont who does not trust the antibiotics that saved my life.

 

"Is that all the answer you are going to give?" he asked.

 

"It's all the answer I have..."

 

"There's nothing I can do for you," he stated. Boy, did he want to be off the hook even though I must admit he has been more helpful than some people.

 

"Well you can get me a ticket to the philanthropists' ball," I told him half in jest.

 

"The what?"

 

"I'm not sure what it is called but there must be some Christmas party for all the really wealthy and important peple in this city. I want to go. You know some pretty important people. How hard would it be to get me a ticket."

 

"What are you trying to do?" asked Dr. Morgan, "raise funds?"

 

"Sort of," I said and I got a copy of the message of the Independent Rainbow meeting that appeared on the TELEGRAPH.

 

"Oh shit," said Dr. Morgan.

 

"You see why I need to talk to the very rich and powerful. We're going to lose Oak Gardens Plaza."

 

"Well there's the Junior League Ball on the twentieth. Tickets are about eighty dollars and if you pay I can get you one."

 

"It's a deal," I answered and then I asked what the Junior League was and Dr. Morgan explained it was a philanthropic organization of rich ladies who usually had rich and powerful husbands.

 

That means I have to buy or rent or find a ball gown that fits someone my height and size. That is no easy task even if I were healthy. I pray to HaShem to give me strength.

 

Alise Liddell

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Zhuang, the seamstress, sucked on the pins in her mouth and continued to pin up the red ball gown I bought in a thrift store in Bethesda. Dr. Morgan's wife took me shopping Sunday afternoon. She said she was not sure whether I would love the Junior League or be bored to tears by it. She said I'd find out after I spent eighty dollars. I consider the money for this ball an investment. I hope and I pray I can reach the rich men's wives, daughters, and sisters and soften their hearts.

 

Lisette does not hold out much hope and not because I sometimes refuse her charms and blessings. The Junior League is just too far away from Oak Gardens Plaza. The Junior League may as well be on the moon. I tell myself that the whole social fabric that lets places like Oak Gardens Plaza fester for countless years is full of pulling pilling threads and I just have to pull in the right place. Yes, call it fanciful if you will.

 

Some days the HaShem's mercy is a lot harder to find than His wrath.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator 3C Currently on leave due to ilness

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Do you want to ask if I enjoyed the ball last night. The answer was that it was work. In a way it was interesting, and predictably sad because I was the only black face that was not serving food or drink or parking cars. I know that is a cliche, but I have gotten used to Oak Gardens Plaza and even at work we are a mixed lot. The government hires the best for translating and technical work and is utterly colorblind.

 

True to Dr. Morgan's promise, the wives and girlfriends were there. I got to meet Eustasia Ashby. I asked her if she had sons or daughters who tutored or perhaps younger siblings. I also asked if she had any one who worked in helping find housing for working class families since many were sure to be displaced when Oak Gardens Plaza became condominiums. Eustasia has a daughter out at Evergreen College in Washington State. No she did not know any one who tutored.

 

"Marilyn might though," she said. "Marilyn! Can you come here for a minute?" she called out and a very tall woman with long black hair that reached her rear end and sparkling green eyes and ghostly pale skin sashayed toward me. With her were three small children that I slowly realized were three littles. One female little was a pale skinned brunette with bright pink cheeks. The other female little had striking auburn hair and blue eyes. Why there are so few black littles I do not know. The male little had shoulder length baby fine blond hair and pale skin and very serious blue eyes. He wore a miniature tuxedo with a black bow tie.

 

"So you are Alise Liddell," Marilyn began.

 

"I am," I replied. "I didn't realize I was that famous."

 

"My husband thinks you died," she went on. "Just wait until he hears otherwise."

 

"How did you recognize me?" I asked. I am still not sure if our grainy movies of the raid got on the news and how much of me was visible or recognizeable.

 

"My husband could not stop talking about you. Apparently you are a school friend of his estranged daughter by his first wife."

 

"Really?" I said. "That school friend is not Naama Roth is it?"

 

"It is indeed. I've never met Naama but she is a fascinating person, a lot like her father and of course the two do have to be rivals don't you think?"

 

"I don't think of Gavriel Roth and Naama as rivals," I confessed.

 

"You consider he abused his children by the other marriages?" asked Marilyn.

 

"I remember when Naama spent time in Upstate for having fried her hands on an electric gate because she wouldn't let her father lock her up in a prison school. That's the incident that led the Roths to lose all their children," I reminded Marilyn whom I now realized was Gavriel Roth's second or third wife.

 

"Gavriel can make mistakes," sighed Marilyn. "He has a decent side and sometimes he just forgets..." Marilyn patted her stomach which I noticed protruded a bit shamelessly.

 

"I'm carrying his twins and these are going to be the only children who call him dad," sighed Marilyn again. "I have to help him be a good father."

 

"What about the littles?" I asked.

 

"The two girls are mine. Th'lani is his," Marilyn explained. "Th'lani, messenger from the future."

 

"I just want to be useful," the male little interrupted. "Don't you understand that?"

 

"Th'lani dear, you are too young to work regardless of what your father tells you," Marilyn replied.

 

"So," Marilyn changed the subject. "What do you want?"

 

"I have a whole laundry list of wants," I joked back.

 

"Start at the top."

 

"All right, we need more tutors and a lot of these women have sons and daughters."

 

"You spent eighty-five dollars to recruit tutors. Alise, I don't believe that."

 

"All right, I'd like to stop the condo conversion at Oak Gardens Plaza. Very few of the families I work with can afford to own their apartments at the market prices the consortium plans to charge."

 

Marilyn smiled. "You want Ashby group to gift Rose Among Thorns the complex," purred Marilyn.

 

"I don't ask for the impossible. Simply stopping the conversion would satisfy me."

 

"So you would be looking at a long term lease of the complex like what you have on that school in Ithaca."

 

"That was Colin and Kayla's idea," I protest.

 

"Colin and Kayla would look on Rose Among Thorns as a partner organization for Independent Rainbow. The rest of IR doesn't want such a partner."

 

"How do you feel?" I countered.

 

"I want to see Independent Rainbow stay viable."

 

"I thought they all ready were viable."

 

"They're full of scandal. This child calling nonsense they practice in Ellenville. Yes, I went there to conceive the twins, but then I heard about the other children and the Mueller girls. You know about them?"

 

I felt faintly sick and it was not my kidneys. "Madilyn and Berith were abandoned by their parents so there would be more resources for the children they called. The Muellers and Roths were neighbors at the time in White Plains. The girls were playmates of Naama."

 

"Everyone wonders why Naama turned out as she did too..." Marilyn chuckled.

 

"Well thre's your scandal," Marilyn continued "and then we have the incident with the prison school when Naama was eighteen and now we have the littles. Do you know where I found Th'Lani?"

 

"Let me guess he was asking a doctor for euthanasia..."

 

"Thankfully not. In New York State even proti eggs are human beings and other courts are following the New York precedent. He went back to the Temple of Life in Yonkers. He was sick with food allergies because Gavriel never bothered to read his medical work up. I came and took him home and fed him right. He looks nice now doesn't he?

 

"If Independent Rainbow wants to survive, it needs to become a child friendly organization. It probably needs Rose Among Thorns for its tutories and recreation centers. It also needs to feel pressure now and from within the system. These," Marilyn pointed at her womb. "Are two top strand babies in the making. These, are why I quit law school. I want them to have a good future."

 

"What do you want?" I asked.

 

"I all ready told you."

 

"If I file for divorce, I get custody of these babies and Gavriel will be lucky to have supervised visitation. I all ready have a lawyer and I also have all of Th'Lani's medical reports. The law considers littles to be children even if a lot of Top Strand does not."

 

"I don't get it."

 

"I'm going to talk to my husband and explain that either he takes care of Rose Among Thorns or he does not get to be father to two children that are genetically his and a little that he doesn't care about as well. He'll jump and you'll have your complex. What I need you to do is lay low. Stay out of the malls for the remainder of this Christmas season and not make an embarassment of your group as Marguerite did in Syracuse."

 

"What about next Christmas?" I asked.

 

"Next Christmas we'll decide what to do together."

 

"Have you thought of tutoring in your spare time?" I asked.

 

Marilyn laughed.

 

"I bet you'd make a great humanities tutor."

 

"How about a cook like Naama?"

 

"Maybe that too.... You could bring the littles along. I'm sure I could find a way to make Th'Lani useful without making him sick."

 

"You don't realize the valuable service you perform," Marilyn said quietly.

 

"Even with our political ideas."

 

"They come with the territory. Having a ninty percent plus literacy rate and low crime among the bottom fifteen percent of society would do us all a lot of good and make IR's job easier. I'm with Dr. FitzRoy on that."

 

Well, what can I say? Do I believe what I just heard. I'm mostly sleeping today. I'm very tired. Around 11am there was a knock on the apartment door, I opened it to find Th'Lani in a green sweater and tan chinos and little loafers.

 

I asked him if he missed wearing robes. He shrugged. "It's a different world here," he said. Then he told me that Ashby Group was meeting for lunch and that Marilyn and Gavriel Roth had a talk. He also said that Marilyn and her Junior League friends were going to want a tour of Oak Gardens Plaza for after Christmas, probably some time between Christmas and New Year.

 

I feel like the Hasmonean monarchs during the time of Hanukkah sandwiched between the Ptolemies on one end and the Assyrian Greeks on the other. Rose Among Thorns is like ancient Israel. Can we keep our independence and keep growing? I don't understand all of the game which Marilyn Roth, third wife of Gavriel Roth, is playing and yes, Naama you are due to have two more half siblings.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Apt 8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

I am alone this Friday night. Lisette is visiting her sister on Baltimore and I walked home from services back to the empty apartment here in Langley. Everyone has gone home for the holidays except me. I was too sick to travel.

 

I'm here in Langley, because I'm a special services conscript, that's a noncombat option national services conscript drafted to do especially skilled work. Since I speak a whole variety of Middle and Near Eastern and South Asian languages, I spend my days translating documents and sometimes writing them. Occasionally I proof read. I get paid well.

 

I also was the Head Religious Officer at Rose Among Thorns in Ithaca before I got drafted last summer. That was eons ago or might as well be. I have memories of past lives and called down the word of God on some drug dealers which is how I got sick. Independent Rainbow is trying to expand to Washington, DC and our founder charged me with the task of doing it. If I had the call, I would not have to use spiritual magic would I? I don't have the call.

 

Staring back at this empty apartment tells me I don't have the call. Today was pathetic. I gave the Junior League ladies and some of their sisters and daughters a tour of Oak Gardens Plaza. The whole thing felt unreal. It was clear the place depressed them. I grew up in the Bronx, so the grubby complex was just the way people in big cities lived. Crowded and urban does not necessarily mean bad. They kept saying how the place needed work and how any trust that took it over would need to do maintenance. I said the community center needed work, but it needed workers more. Actually putting the young men (It's mostly men) on house arrest on a rennovation crew might not be a bad idea.

 

As I said, none of this feels real. This empty apartment in Langley feels very real. I sit huddling. Do you want to know if I like Marilyn Roth who is organizing the trust that is going to buy and hold Oak Gardens Plaza as a low cost rental complex for working class families, a Rose Among Thorns community? You all ready know the answer. Marilyn and her lady friends scare me. They want something of me and in turn of Rose Among Thorns but what they want is not straight forward. Colin and Kayla who effectively gave 411 Hillview Place to Naama (That's Independent Rainbow #2) are Top Strand for Upstate New York, Pennsylvania except Philadelphia, and Western New England. They think Rose Among Thorns is a good thing. It was philanthropy and also Rose Among Thorns and Independent Rainbow's goals overlap. That makes it straight forward politics, policy, and philanthropy. Also they have always liked Kathleen FitzRoy and she is in large part Naama Roth's and to a lesser extent my mentor.

 

Now, Marilyn Roth, is a different story. She doesn't know me from a hole in the wall because she doesn't know Naama. She's playing some kind of power game inside Independent Rainbow and that scares me because Independent Rainbow in its Top Strand is very opaque. She could come along some day and say to Marguerite or me, do this or we pull the housing. You know, in a way she all ready had, but I was too sick to organize protests in the mall and we did not follow all the rules with regard to a proper Rose Among Thorns Christmas celebration. We also did not have a proper Rose Among Thorns house so it kind of went both ways, but I was too sick to do much teaching and with three weeks until Christmas there was no way to do the kind of teaching needed for that. Next year though, I don't want Marilyn Roth coming by and telling me what I can and can't preach and threatening to pull the plug if I don't do it her way. On the other hand, if Marilyn Roth is out to buy a preacher, she can have one a lot less cheaply than she got me. Also, I'm not the best merchandise. I'm her husband's tough as nails' estranged daughter's school friend, not exactly a friend of the Roth family, such as it is. That is why the whole thing boggles me.

 

Some time after the holiday, our board gets to sign the paper work. Yes, there is going to be a governing board of the trust that owns Oak Gardens Plaza. Marilyn Roth will be on it, but so too will be some of the residents I have worked with: Raylina, Soledad, Florence or perhaps Lisette Dumont. I won't be on the board. I'll be Head Religious and Educational Officer, something similar to my old title. We'll need kitchen staff, tutors, more than we have now, recreational staff, liaisons with charity organizations and for fund raising. It has taken me time to realize that Rose Among Thorns #10, which is what this house will be when Marguerite grants us our number, will ultimately be larger than Rose Among Thorns #1 which is the main house back in Syracuse. As I said before, my poor head boggles.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

The Morgans invited me for brunch at their house. Lisette is visiting family in New York so I would have been all alone in the apartment in Langley. I can't really handle that. I know that sounds funny because I seem able to handle so much, but that is the way it is.

 

We ate omelettes made with sun dried tomatoes that made me think of Rose Among Thorns in Ithaca and that made me sad. After brunch, I went walking along the Patomac all the way back to Langley. It was a bright sunny day, but my thoughts were unfocused. In a few hours, Cheyenne and Miriam return. Lisette's bed is still on the floor. Poor Lisette, she has no where to go until they get her another apartment.

 

I am going to speak to Marilyn Roth and Eustasia Ashby. Those high rolling wheelers and dealers may as well make themselves useful. It is not that I want to get rid of Lisette, but it is wrong for her to be homeless and also probably illegal here in Langley. This is federal housing and they have rules about these things.

 

The apartment is full of long shadows. Lisette has set up her altar with a small neatly written "Don't touch" sign next to it. I ignore it. Lisette does not worship idols. She uses representations in worship, much like the Song of Songs mural in the common area downstairs. Cheyenne and Miriam finally finished the mural and when we have Golden Hour next week, I will get to hear their voices reading something spiritual that brings them alive.

 

Cheyenne and Miriam are success stories inside a larger failure. How do I explain this...The people in Oak Gardens Plaza don't belong to any one else or at least they shouldn't. They belong to themselves. Now that is self evident. Well, what's self evident is not so. Behind Marilyn Roth and perhaps Eustasia Ashby are hundreds of Independent Rainbow eyes and behind those Independent Rainbow brains planning and plotting I can't guess what. Is it some kind of scheme to keep the poor in line? I'm all for keeping people out of jail except when they must commit civil disobedience. I'm all for people getting education and jobs, but ultimately at some point you do have to fight if you are challenged or threatened.

 

Now what could any one threaten. Put the co-op conversion aside. That was a real threat, but I am thinking deeper things like freedom of expression or religion. Freedom of expression also means freedom to get an education for pleasure or englightenment not just for one's job. The media and business establishment would like to usurp those rights because learning and faith make those who have them strong and not amenable to a constant cycle of material desire that impoverishes on so many levels. OK, enough philosophy. The fight hasn't started yet, but it is there. Does Independent Rainbow really want a bunch of smart, strong, poor people out there? Rose Among Thorns does. What happens next?

 

Alise Liddell

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

The phone call came yesterday around eleven in the morning. The woman on the other end introduced herself as Harmony Flowers. I had heard the name somewhere before and so have you. She has been in some of Kathleen FitzRoy's posts to the Telegraph. I had a vague sense of who she was.

 

She was very polite. She has a very pretty phone voice. She asked me how I was doing. I told her my health was decent again. I'm on medication for hypertension, but so are a lot of other Afro-Americans. It's just a water pill in my case anyway.

 

She asked me what I liked to eat. I told her I like fish, but the kind with fins and scales. I am trying to keep kosher since my conversion to Judaism becomes formalized in August.

 

"I think I can get you a fish dinner," said Ms. Flowers.

 

Why, I wondered did Ms. Harmony Flowers want to buy me a fish dinner or have one delivered. "When is a good night for us to go out to dinner?" Harmony Flowers did not miss a beat.

 

I said that tonight I was busy and that tonight is Shabbos and I eat at Rabbi Shimon's in Bethesda. I suggested Monday the eighth for our dinner date and Ms. Flowers said she'd pick me up at work. She said there would be other guests and that I should be sure to wear a skirt.

 

Fine, I guess this is where Top Strand gets a good look at the Rose Among Thorns religious officer they are buying with Oak Gardens Plaza and their trust. I wonder if I will pass muster. I wonder if I should pass muster. I haven't reached any issues that would remotely be selling out, so I guess I am OK that way. I just wish I knew more about these people. I guess I have all weekend to worry.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Tareisia and Dr. FitzRoy

 

This is to let you know that your letters were very helpful. Harmony Flowers came by in her Lexus to pick me up for dinner at a fine hotel. Eustasia Ashby, Marilyn Roth, and several other women I did not know were there. There was no sign of Gavriel Roth of the little, Th'lani.

 

Since I had had the whole weekend to think about what you wrote, and much of yesterday as well, I had just two questions to ask:

 

"What research do you plan to do with the population at Oak Gardens Plaza?" I asked it in somewhat politer language; for our dinner was very polite.

 

My other question was "what research is Project U currently conducting in Washington DC?" I had to ask this last one. If Rose Among Thorns is to tie themselves more intimately to Independent Rainbow than a good friendly relationship with Colin and Kayla, we have to know our partner. They after all will do everything they can to know us and I don't mean in the Biblical sense.

 

Oddly enough, the Project U ladies were very forthcoming with answers. Marilyn Roth explained that Project U would NOT be disrupting Rose Among Thorns at least partially successful social experiment. They would instead be collecting data to measure our success and also how we changed attitudes among believers. "Business is concerned," she said.

 

And after dinner, I got a tour of some of the other Project U endeavors. These include gender selection through insemination and a program where young girls wear a contraceptive patch and receive free tutoring and academic support from age twelve through twenty-two. The theory behind this program is that if a girl gets a college degree, she will be less likely to become a single parent by an irresponsible man and if she does single parent, she will be more likely to be able support her child.

 

"The problem with this program," Harmony Flowers explained "is it doesn't include males, and the women complain of a lack of eligible partners as well."

 

Project U also sponsors two reading clubs for younger children paying teachers and librarians to mentor the children in to reading until their eyeballs ache. This works to boost reading level, but it only works if children have learned to read initially. That of course was where research on dyslexia and its genetic basis came in.

 

"We think we can cure a lot of these ills through genetic engineering," Marilyn Roth explained, "but tinkering with genes when we really don't know squat has its downside especially when human beings are invovled. That's why we like the Rose Among Thorns approach. It is global, realtively low tech, and noninvasive. I think your group will produce good results."

 

Can I say I felt flattered? I did. Of course we didn't sign any papers last night. The lawyers have to vet everything and Eustasia Ashby assured me that Lisette, Raylina, Florence, Soledad, Cheynne, Miriam, and I would meet all the assessment staff before we signed our lives away. This is going to take at least two more weeks and probably closer to a month.

 

Meanwhile, tonight I am taking Lisette, Cheyenne, and Miriam to go postering on the Georgetown University Campus. We need to recruit tutors who can work afternoons. Unfortunately, postering which took endless phone calls and a lunch time trip to get a permission stamp, is the best we can do. All of us who are conscripts work days, but we have our evenings free for chores like this. I have to call the campus radio station at George Washington University and see if they will broad cast a public service announcement asking for tutors and announcing a tutoring orientation session.

 

I hope and pray that if we get too many tutors, some of them will be content to do rennovation and act as kitchen help. I don't know if I'm up to training cooks. Naama, you may have to spare some of your students to put them to work in the kitchens down here in DC. We'll see how it all goes. I need to have an organization in place even before the legal paperwork is signed.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I'm sorry I haven't written in so long. I've been reading the racial posts that Tareisia has written. I'm West Indian (Afro-Caribbean because I was born in Trinidad. Not all those slave ships long ago went to the United States) by the way and very dark. Some day maybe we should write posts about skin color. It's only skin deep.

 

Anyway, I was thinking of what Tareisia was writing the last few days when I started training tutors this weekend at Oak Gardens Plaza (It's NOT Choke Gardens Plaza). Most of our tutors come from Georgetown University and George Washington University. The biggest difference between our tutors and the staff we all ready have is that the staff we all ready have works full time. They don't make all that much money but they work, or the staff we have are conscripts though that is one ugly word.

 

Since we are discussing race, I'll give you the break down. Seventy percent of the new staff are white. That does not surprise me. That is not that high a percentage. I wish there were more blacks but the thirty percent who are yellow, brown, and black if you want to think of it that way is about twenty-five percent black. Some are West Indian, some are actually from Africa, and some are Afro-American. We also have Chinese, Latino, Farsi, Tamil, and even Palestinian tutors and recreational staff. Without kitchen equipment we have no need for cooks. When we get a decent kitchen set up which will be after we sign the papers, I'll start looking to train a kitchen staff. This is not my area. This is more Naama's.

 

I know I don't want the working people to have a second shift in the kitchen unless they feel called to cook and become stewards. It is better to train college students who have such a calling, but as I said this is a way off.

 

Right now I am dealing with an impossibly large bunch of volunteers. As happens in any city with large universities, there are more tutors than we have room. Syracuse was a much smaller city with one major university and a house located what was psychologically a world away from the campus on East Hill. Washington, DC is different and far more like Ithaca.

 

The volunteers did not take it badly that only half of them could tutor. The other half will work on rennovation and recreation. One Farsi young man was particularly disappointed. I simply had better skilled and more patient math tutors. The main call here is for high school and middle school math and the guy knew his math but lacked patience and used far too many work arounds. When too much math becomes intuitive, it is hard to teach.

 

I finally stuck him on rennovation crew because he had no hobbies at which he excelled. I got my chess master elsewhere and she was tickled pink to be teaching a game she loved instead of algebra. Way to go! I convinced the Farsi boy he would be learning a new and useful skill as he led others in the crew. Scraping walls, sweeping, and painting are necessary and working out a game plan so we can do the rennovation around other activities is important.

 

So far, we are rennovating the community center in stages. We have half of it blocked off with plastic tape. Hamid, my Farsi crew member, helped with the hanging. I didn't want him just standing there and supevising so I got a chair and started hanging the drop cloth divider myself. Then I invited him to help. He caught on but then he said: "well you're in charge."

 

"We all work here," I reminded him.

 

Then I said to him in his own language: "There is no shame in working with your hands. The only shame is in sitting on your rear end."

 

When there are a lot of college students together they speak of the draft. The next call up is February 13. These students live in fear that the government could rip their lives in two. I'm past that fear. Maybe I never was afraid. I always knew that because I speak a lot of languages, I would be called. It is harder to fear a certainty and Vijaya showed no fear because she has a strong nature. I wish I could explain to the students that fear is pointless.

 

One of the residents of the complex put it better. He was a forty year old man with a paunch and a head as bald as a chocolate billiard ball. He remarked: "Even if you're drafted, no one is going to blast your ass to pieces in Iraq so why are you afraid? It's the poor kids who go off to do glory and combat. You're all too smart for that."

 

And one last piece of good news. I found a choir director. He's a faculty member at George Washington and he teaches oral music and music theory. He said if kids really wanted to learn to sing in the classic tradition, he could teach them. What can I say. Damien Fiori is our new choir/chorus director. That feels terrific! And, Tareisia I don't need a stinking house number!

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

After our Sunday morning service which we still have at Langley since we have a working sanctuary there complete with Cheyenne and Miriam's first mural, most of us headed out to Oak Gardens Plaza to help with tutoring or the rennovation. I work on rennovation to show that I am not high and mighty. Besides I have a desk job all week and sometimes run out of patience with the younger kids. I never tutored very many little kids in Syracuse. It was high school and college students. We always had plenty of those. Washington, DC though is different.

 

The Community Center which is not ready to be a sanctuary and barely makes a tutorie and recreation center combination is a mess. Half of it is half way usable and that is where the tutorie is and where the recreational groups form up before going elsewhere. When we get the papers signed, we'll be able to spread out in to some of Building #17. I don't know if Lisette Dumont is getting her old apartment back or getting an apartment somewhere else in the complex. She is getting her furniture which is good news.

 

The half of the Community Center which is not used for tutoring or recreation is awash in peelie paint chips. Behind the curtain of taped up drop cloth, Hamid, the boys (and girls too I'm afraid) with ankle brancelets (electronic monitors courtesy of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. This is better and cheaper than keeping people in jail. It is called house arrest.), and several students from Georgetown made short work of the previous five or six paint jobs and countless years of dirt and grime. I stood on a step ladder wire brush in hand and sometime scraper in hand and made my share of snow fly. The young men (and women sad to say) on probation are surprisingly good workers. Their one complaint is that they can not have music while the tutorie is in session. In the morning or when the tutors go on break, they turn up the boombox fullblast and we are bathed in a sea of hip hop. I won't relate the lyrics here, but they bring smiles to the faces of the crew, and these guys work so hard, I have said nothing. But if the hip hop artists were residents of Rose Among Thorns in Ithaca or Syracuse, our epithet jar would be overflowing.

 

There is a lot of violent energy that needs to come out in acceptible ways among this entire congregation. For the crew that is on probation and house arrest, it is attacking the Community Center walls to the "tune" of assassinating police and fantasies about rough and tumble copulation. For Cheyenne and Miriam, it is designing a new mural that will replace the multiple coats of dirty paint. The mural is to be a tryptic of the story of Jael and Sisera. Jael, a simple woman who lived in a tent with her semi-nomadic herdsman hubby, invites the fleeing Philistine general, Sisera in to her tent for warm milk

and a nap. He is tired. Battle has not gone well and he needs to eat, drink, lie down, and rest. Jael may have drugged the milk or Sisera may be completely exhausted. He falls asleep. Jael finds a tent peg, and drives it through Sisera's head. You can read this story in the Book of Judges in the Bible.

 

Cheyenne and Miriam have discovered the women of the Bible and there was no disuading them from painting this tale. Actually, I've brought Cheyenne and Miriam back to their faith and they are educating themselves. They are my two best converts, if I indeed do have converts. Remember, I lack the call to preach. Cheyenne and Miriam's mural is in good taste. It does not show Sisera all bloody. It does show him with a blanket covering his head and some blood leaking out and there is a great picture of Jael clutching the tent peg and hammer to her chest. She is wearing a white dress which shows a fair amount of cleavage. She has long waves of dark brown hair and big liquid dark brown eyes.

 

Cheyenne and Miriam won't put their second masterpiece on the wall until the weather warms a bit and until those papers are signed and until the paint chips are all swept up, bagged, and in the dumpster, and that means we will have scraped out both sides of the Community Center.

 

And yes, I have confidence that the lawyers will sign the papers and prepare them. Our own lawyer who works with the Syracuse and Ithaca hosues, gave me the name of a friend here in DC who is willing to handle the paperwork pro-bono for Rose Among Thorns. That means this thing is really moving. I have to visit him after work on Monday. Naama, congratulations in straightening out Kelli's fudning. You have more patience for this beaurocratic stuff than I do, but I am catching up fast. Hey, we haven't heard from Vijaya in a while, have we?

 

Alise Liddell

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

You haven't heard from me im a while because I have been putting out fires with the Ashby Group. Well, not literally thank HaShem but it has been bad enough.

 

Wednesday there was no heat in the Community Center at Oak Gardens Plaza. There was also no hot water which we use to help strip the paint and scrub the walls. I feared a frozen pipe and spent most of my lunch break attempting to reach the Ashby Group who are still the technical owners of Oak Gardens Plaza. That means they pay or fail to pay the utility bills.

 

It turns out they have paid them but the utility company was not maintaining the lines and now had to come out and fix a broken gas main. I managed to get Lisette Dumont to supervise the work since most everyone else had day jobs. Lisette has her own way of making a living and it is all under the table. People will pay a mage/priest who does real magick for her services.

 

By Shabbos, the heat and hot water were fixed and our crew was working on the rennovations all Saturday. I took the day off though to spend part of Shabbos in Bethesday and then came by at night to visit Raylina and Soledad. I took the bus back late this evening.

 

We have a date to sign the papers. It is February 16th. Thank HaShem. It looks like there will be a house dedication yet.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, Virginia

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

Let me get you caught up with the news. Oak Gardens Plaza is now officially Rose Among Thorns #12. I never thought that such a thing would be. I wish I were more elatd than exhausted. We decided to schedule our house dedication for Purim which is two weekends from now. You can save the date if you like. This is a fairly public operation. Indvidiuals' apartments are off limits.

 

The house probably won't be fully ready by then, but that is fine. We are painting the inside of the Community Center and yesterday, we finally had our walk-through of Building #17, former home of the infamous "Supermarket." The building is a wreack, but at least it is not crawling with vermin. I got the bright idea to test all the facuets and that is when I found out the upper floor apartments had no water and the bottom ones had minimal and I mean very minimal water pressure. Older Brother's friend who goes by the name of Ivan and I went down to the basement and found that there was a big chunk of ice in one of the water pipes. December was warm but the past few weeks around here have been bitterly cold, hence the frozen pipe. The good news is the pipe did not burst and is not even entirely blocked. Ivan and I turned on every faucet in the building and I am hijacking hair dryers from Cheyenne, Miriam, and residents at Oak Gardens to train hot air on the frozen pipe. With luck, this will melt the ice and we'll keep the building at 64 or above Farenheit. Ivan also suggested insulating the water heater with fiber glass that comes in big rolls like a blanket.

 

I need to use some of our funds which we get through the sale of our Jael and her Nail t-shirts to buy the padding. There is a good place in the suburbs that sells that stuff, so it's off on the train with Mustafa (alias Older Brother) to buy the padding while Soledad and Raylina take turns watching the hair driers in Building #17's basement. By the way, most of Lisette Dumont's furniture vanished along with her altar pieces. She says that whoever took them may suffer a powerful curse. I hope this is not so, but Lisette knows her stuff and many people fear her. I don't fear her, but maybe I am lucky that way.

 

Vijaya, please let us know if you hear from Clay even if he is sleeping with someone else, that is still better than some of the alterantives given what he is doing and where he is stationed.

 

Alise Liddell

Chief Religious Officer

Rose Among Thorns #12

Building #17

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

The time has come. At 10am, I catch a Metro to law offices at 722 Nebraska Ave. NE and meet Lisette, Raylina, and Older Brother (His real name is Mustafa) to sign the papers for Oak Gardens Plaza. There will also be a lawyer who is a friend of Pavel D'Einhorn in Binghamton. He helped supply Rose Among Thorns with their first attorney. This lawyer is a friend of that attorney. I still can't believe this is really going to happen without a hitch. I have tried imagining myself calling Marguerite Weinstein in Syracuse with the news. I really don't know what happens after that. Fortunately, I don't believe in numerology so the number twelve will have no sigificance.

 

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in downtown Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

House #12 became official with Rose Among Thorns Friday afternoon. Saturday we got our "walk-through" of Building #17. It is a wreack. I am just glad it is not crawling with cockroaches and rats. Somehow I had the bright idea to turn on the water faucets and that was how I found that the top floors have no water and the first floor has only minimal, and I mean very minimal water pressure.

 

Mustafa (Older Brother) and Ivan, his friend, and I went down to the basement and found a frozen pipe. It is not a burst pipe. It is not even completely frozen, but it has a large chunk of ice in it. Cheyenne, Miriam, and several residents here at Oak Gardens rounded up hair dryers and we are trying to unfreeze the pipe. Also all the faucets are on in the building which also helps melt ice.

 

They are painting the community center today. I am off with Older Brother in a bit to get a fiber glass blanket for the water heaters and pipes to keep them insulated to prevent a refreeze. We also have to keep Building #17 at at least sixty-four degrees Farenheit to prevent pipes from freezing again. Well, at least this is a beginning.

 

Vijaya, have you heard from Clay yet? I hope it is good news. No news can't be good news and I think we both know this.

 

Alise Liddell

Chief Religious Officer

Rose Among Thorns #12

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Brendan and Vijaya,

Alas, I have not yet moved out of Langley. Building #17 has to pass inspection and the paint needs to go on the walls and dry. The mural in the Community Center is nearly finished though. Older Brother's younger sister, Ayesha, who bakes is going to teach Cheyenne, Miriam, and me to make hamentaschen since our house dedication is on Purim.

All three choirs will sing which means they are learning Shout by Simple Minds, Painter of the Heavens which is a modern Christian hymn and Adon Olam which is a Jewish hymn meaning "Lord of the World." The three choirs, Ithaca, Ardsley, and here in Washington will also do solo numbers. I think we may get filmed since some of the ceremony will be out of doors.

Don't ask me how I feel about any of this. Vijaya, I hope the news about Clay is accurate, not that I am glad he has a badly broken leg. I am glad he is alive if he indeed is alive and in Bilbao. I'm not sure I trust the "gentlemen" who inhabit the Testosterone Palace.

Alise Liddell

Translator Grade 3C

Somewhere in Washington, DC

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

I am still in Langley. I'm on sick call today. I've got mono. The epidemic is still ripping its way through Oak Gardens Plaza. Lisette thinks we are ground zero for it, not little Ardsley, New York. Medical angels, a group of primary care physicians from Rev. Morgan's Unitarian congregation set up a mobile medical unit in the community center and looked over kids and young adults with sore throats and stiff necks, asked them if they were vomiting or had other symptoms besides feeling run down which is different from "lethargy." He also had the nurses take nad process the blood tests in a mobile lab.

Right now I am blaming our tutors for spreading the disease. They get sick. They still go to class. They still go about their business and they give this thing a big spread. Of course adults on jobs with no or bad sick leave policy are good mono spreaders as well. People tend to keep kids home. I know, Naama, your policy of sending any one you can dose up with naproxen to school is reasonable in its own way esepcially for high school students (No one can afford to miss a week or more of school for something that is going to drag on forever, and which really does not make them extremely sick.), here parents keep sick kids home. I am trying to convince them to send them to school once they are half well so they don't miss too much. It's going to mean a world full of people who eat, sleep, and study, but so be it.

I'm glad you're still well. We're still waiting on the building inspection for #17 so I can move down to Oak Gardens. I'll be on my own to commute to work, but there is no reason I can't ride the Metro. My supervisor has OK's everything.

It is very quiet in the apartment this morning. I too think the Sirius Gate (Come on. Let's spell it right!) crew, those that are not dead, are still alive.

I also wonder why they have not started cutting up and roasting some of those dead bodies. They did not give them dignified burial in space, so they must be saving them for food. I know cannibalism is pretty awful, but eating excrement is worse. Think of the epithets we have in English. A favorite curse is: "Eat shit and die!" We don't have any such epithet about eating the dead. Our epithet about cannibalism is "You're dead meat!" The one being eaten is more shamed than the one doing the eating. Eating the dead when you are starving is no where near as low as eating excrement.

Of course we're pretty much omnivores here. My favorite meat is tunafish (not sardines. That's your food, Naama, though I'll eat them.) and everyone seems to like chicken. Naama, I know you sometimes make turkey or lamb. I guess we'll have a dairy kitchen a lot of the time too. I know our kitchen here in Langley is dairy about sixty percent of the time.

I'm going to go take a nap. This mono is knocking everything out of me.

Alise Liddell

Head Religious Officer

Rose Among Thorns #12

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

and

Apt #8J

3533 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, VA

Point Two-Five

 

I'm enough over my mono to give a sermon this weekend. People sometimes like my sermons. I got to talk about redemption and I guess that fit the mood since we had a lot of Christians in the audience Friday night and their minds were on Easter.

Cheyenne and Miriam helped me clean up Apt #8J for Passover. We are going to be spending it here rather than in Building #17 because we still haven't had the city inspectors out there. How much negative news can you take?

The good news is we have the Community Center up and running and Building #17 is more or less ready for occupation, but the DC beaurocracy moves at a snail's pace. No, a snail moves and the DC beaurocracy doesn't.

The trees are just starting to come in to bloom here and the narcissus are starting to bud. We are bit too far south for crocuses and hyacinths though I've seen some of them too. Miriam knows all the flowers. She says Oak Gardens should have a real garden including a bulb bed. Unfortunately, the time for planting bulbs is autumn. The bulbs sleep through the winter and awaken with the spring. There is something very symbolic in all that.

In other news, Marilyn Roth is in week thirty-five of her pregnancy with twins. That means, Naama that in about a month or sooner you will have two new half siblings. Th'lani, messenger from the future, and one of my favorite littles, comes to services every weekend as Marilyn's eyes and ears. I can't call the poor kid a spy. I always find him something that he can eat on the kiddush table and ask after his sisters and his mother. He asks how my high blood pressure is doing. Thankfully it is in control. If this mono would clear up, I'd be in good shape for a change.

Littles are hatched with pretty good immune systems. They catch mono the same way school age children do, usually as only a mild infection or a silent case. The current virulent outbreak is a weird exception. So far Th'lani has not brought the disease home to his pregnant mom.

Anyway, that is all the news I have to report to the telegraph. I wish it were not negative news. Negative news gets boring after a time. Off this message goes and it should arrive where it is going soon.

Alise Liddell

Chief Religious Officer

Rose Among Thorns #12

Oak Gardens Plaza (soon)

Washington, DC and

Apt #8J

3335 Freedom Executive Park

Langley, VA

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

It has been so long since I've written so I want to lead off with good news. I've seen Clay twice. Well, it is part of my job as a Chief Religious Officer, to visit the sick. Clay is injured. Clay is at Walter Reed. Clay is Vijaya Naipul's boyfriend. He is bNOT[/b] in the standard outpatient area. First, he is not an outpatient and second he was and still is black ops. There is a limit to how much his handlers want him mixing with the regular troops.

Clay is huge. He towers over me. My visits make the nurses laugh because I am less than five feet tall and Clay is a good five inches over six feet. Vijaya Naipul stands six feet even in her stocking feet so he's the right size for her. When Clay stands up straight in his collection of complicated casts, braces, and other orthopedic devices, I stare at his belly button or waistline. For high school girls this is fun, but I am twenty years old. Besides you all know I want to get engaged. I can't because I am awaiting my conversion to Judaism to be finalized when I turn twenty-one late this summer.

Clay baffles me for the simple reason that he put himself in harm's way for no good reason. Sorry, taking a noncombat option for National Service was a nobrainer on my part. I had no desire to get shot at as the US tries to build an empire all over the world. Clay wanted to shoot and get shot at. He did not get his wish. He was injured in an accident or injured at least before he could do any shooting.

Vijaya, Clay misses you. That goes without saying. I know the two of you are in touch by email. Clay will stay an inpatient at least until summer. There is nowhere near his family where he can do rehab back in Idaho so moving him to California would just be fruitless expense. He calls me "Reverend Halfpint." I have to laugh even though I don't find this one bit funny when he does it to my face.

I've been in Building #17 for two weeks. Cheyenne and Miriam are there too. I've taken them to visit Clay and his comrades and they got permission to take photos of them and from the photos they are making a nural of wounded service people and nurses for our walls on the second floor. Lisette Dumont is glad she does not live on the second floor. She thinks the mural will bring bad luck. I can't see how that will be so. Cheyenne and Miriam say the mural is topical and about the war and its consequences. I tend to agree with them.

I have even more good news in case any one is interested. Dov may be transferred to the Washington, DC area. Dov Orenstein is my prospective fiancee and boyfriend. We met while we were both in high school. Dov got lucky for a Lubavitcher male. There was for a time (It no longer exists by the way) a dual track high school that gave regular general education New York State Regents diplomas. There is still such education for Lubavitcher girls, but not for the boys. The idea at the time was that if the boys got good general educations they would be more successful as schluchim (emissaries/rabbis who are entrepreneurial) to educated clientel. The dual purpose high school ended up producing a lot of nonschluchim. They ended up engineers, scientists, teachers, and in Dov's case a social work student. The loss was about ten to fifteen percent of the class and I don't consider it a real loss. Dov says the Rebbe pursued secular studies at a community college in France at one point in his life, and if he were alive Bait Belzel would still be running.

What killed Dov's old high school was the draft. Young men got drafted and did not want arms twisted to keep them out of National Service. They got drafted and joined up. This was unacceptible to most parents and the school took the blame. Now, eight months in to our National Service, Dov is a successful activities manager in north Texas. He has learned nursery rhymes and folk songs all in English and stories he would never have learned in New York. He has them collected on a USB drive. He also realizes that a lot of the Lubavitch rabbis simply were either igornant or lied to him. He is glad he cast his lot with Rose Among Thorns.

Dov's success is very different from what happens to a lot of charedi/Chasidic young people when they get drafted. The government wants to talk to Dov and find out what makes him a success and get his help in designing a program to help Chasidim who are drafted with their adjustment. This sounds like a lot. Well, I guess it is. Maybe HaShem hands out blessings when He feels like it. I do feel blessed. I hope everyone else is too.

Alise Liddell

Chief Religious Officer

Rose Among Thorns #12

Apt #3A

Building #17

Oak Gardens Plaza

Washington, DC

Point Two-Five