The thump of an old woman’s cane worked in time with her lurching steps as she shuffled down a dark street on December 24th, 2043. Her dark blue dress was drab, and she wore a beige long coat over it with a grey shawl wrapped around her head. Her aluminum cane had a four branch tip with rubber caps held together with duct tape.
She could recall when this street was lively, but now it was barren. No other travelers were in sight, and no vehicles. Tall, curving poles lined the sidewalk, but the glass fixtures gave no light.
Around her battered brick buildings held empty, black windows with cracked glass. Nails and splinters remained where boards once covered the narrow openings, but they had been torn away to be burned long ago. Still plastered on the one wall was an aged, life-size poster she recognized as a propaganda piece for President Jefferson Louis. The face was ripped away and filth was smeared over the rest of the poster, but she could still make out the words ‘We Can Do It!’ across the bottom. She sneered at the slogan and wondered how his supporters never stopped to ask what ‘It’ was.
In the distance, separated from these neighborhoods by a field of dark wilderness, was a gleaming city of glass skyscrapers with drones moving around the bright tops. The locals called it Hollas, but it had been years since she walked those blinding paths. She would not go there now no matter what the pay.
As she neared an intersection of three lane streets, a squalling cat ran by, pursued by a young man with a cleaver. Both were thin and haggard, with bony joints and frayed hair. The cat had black fur with beige stripes, and his pursuer wore a dirty white t-shirt and ripped jeans. The man huffed to a stop while the cat continued out of sight. His head jerked in her direction, and he pointed the cleaver at her. It was blunted and scratched, but still gleamed with a threat.
“Give me all you got, lady,” his hoarse voice demanded.
She paused in her walk, and her heart started to hammer in her chest. “Mark Tiller, if you hadn’t blown your mind on drugs, you would remember that all I had worth stealing was taken long ago.”
He blinked his bloodshot eyes and nodded. “Oh, hi Benny. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.” Still holding the cleaver, he scratched his arm. “Do you have any food?”
She shook her head as she restarted her slow walk. “I’m going down to the church to see if they have any.”
He skipped a few steps towards her. “Can I come with you?”
She shook her head. “You’re not welcome at the church anymore, Mark. Remember?”
He stopped and gave a slight nod. “They said I can’t come back since . . . after what I did to the nun.”
“She wasn’t a nun. It’s a Baptist church. We don’t have nuns. She was just a scared, hungry girl.”
He licked his lips. “Do you think she’s still there?”
Benny attempted a shrug, but only managed a stiff lurch. “Doesn’t matter since you’re not welcome back.”
He looked down at the cleaver. “Maybe I should go see. Just in case.” He started to follow her.
She turned her head in the direction of the fleeing feline. “I think I saw that cat run behind the dumpster.”
Mark’s head spun, and he lumbered away. After another minute she heard him curse loudly and the cat screech.
Benny could not keep a disgusted look from her face as she glanced over her shoulder in Mark’s direction. “Lord, I know we’re supposed to pray for everyone,” she whispered. “So, I hope the cat wins.” She slowed her pace to give her heart a chance to catch up.
After another two blocks she arrived at a three story building on the corner that still had plywood covering the windows. It was illegal to display a cross or to call any building a church, so the only sign read ‘Sojourn Baptist’.
Though she took the stone steps one at a time, her heart continued to keep a steady beat that shook through her body. She knocked on the heavy wood door three times, and took a step back, subconsciously adjusting her shawl. After a slight pause where she heard a heavy bolt pulled aside, a thin teenager opened the door with a shy smile.
“Hi, Miss Benny,” she greeted her.
“Hi Patty, how are you tonight?” she returned the greeting as she stepped inside. She took a moment to take off her coat and shawl. Patty quickly closed the door and relocked it.
Once filled with pews and smiling faces, the sanctuary floor was covered with tents and sleeping bags. Weary people shuffled around, talking in low voices, and the prevailing odor was from unwashed bodies. In the corner a circle of women was listening to another read from a bible in her hands.
The cough of an infant turned Benny’s head as a young woman approached. She wore an old football jersey faded beyond recognition and black leggings. The baby in her arms was listless and mucus crusted his nostrils to make a wheezing sound with every breath.
“Sharee,” Benny greeted the mother. She bore the two things that Mark Tiller left her with the last time he was there, the child and a scar on her throat from the knife he used to subdue her.
Sharee held out the baby to Patty. “Can you take him? I need to talk with Miss Benny.”
Benny paused patiently while Patty took the infant and found a place to sit.
Tears welled in Sharee’s eyes as she explained, “Neal’s dying, Benny, my baby boy. The doctor said he has an infection, but he won’t give any medicine because we can’t pay. I offered him . . . what I have, but he said he can get better girls in the city.”
“Heftek is not a doctor, he’s a smuggler,” she reminded Sharee.
The younger woman titled her head to hide the scar. “He has medicine and that’s what he says to call him, so what’s the difference?”
“Doctor’s have PhD’s. Heftek just has a truck that he uses to steal for profit.”
Benny glanced over to Neal, fussing, and coughing in Patty’s lap. She had not been at the church the night Mark cornered Sharee but had helped her on the morning that Neal was born. Her own two sons had died in the second civil war, and her daughter lived in another country. Neal was as close to a grandchild as she was likely to get.
She turned her gaze to the far corner of the room where Pastor Zaldine, a large man with a bald head gleaming in the soft light, spoke urgently to a slim man in a white coat, Heftek. Although the pastor towered over the smuggler, it was clear he was not gaining any ground. He spread his hand over his waist, pushing the white coat back and revealed a revolver in its holster.
Benny patted Sharee on the arm. “Go take care of your son. I’ll go see if this old girl has anything that skin trader wants.” She walked over to the pair in time to hear the end of their discussion. She detected Heftek’s customary odor of aftershave and alcohol and suspected the man was drunk.
Zaldine urged him, “Just give her the medicine and we’ll owe you. We’ll have something for you the next time you come.”
Heftek shook his head. “I can’t do that. If word got out that I was giving away medicine the line of beggars would be around the corner.”
“Would that be so bad?”
Heftek glared at him. “Those same people begging me would be selling the stuff I handed out. If anyone is going to profit off this merchandise, it’s going to be me.”
Zaldine stared at him with incredulous contempt. “He’s just a baby.”
Heftek retorted. “The kid’s better off not growing up in this hovel. She should have aborted him, which is what I told her to do.”
Zaldine shook his head. “We believe in life and love here, not death and pain.”
The smuggler looked around with a smirk. “And yet, all I see is people dying in pain.”
While the two men talked, Benny unscrewed the handle on her cane. From a small compartment she produced a simple band of gold and held it up with two fingers. “How much will this buy?”
“Hello, Miss Juneros,” Heftek glanced at her, and his eyes went wide at the ring. “Is that real gold? Where did you get it?”
“I’ve had it for fifteen years, ever since my husband died. It was his wedding ring. How much will it buy?”
Heftek licked his lips. “You could get enough food for a month with that thing. Sure, I’ll trade it for a bottle of medicine.”
She pulled her hand back. “You said it was worth a month’s supply of food.”
“Yeah.”
“So, start stacking.” She could hear the commotion of people moving behind her. A crowd had formed to watch the trade.
Heftek looked from the ring in her withered fingers, to the crowd and knew he was trapped by his own mocking words. He nodded and held his palm out. “Give it over and I’ll bring you fair value for it.”
Benny calmly put the ring in a pocket and screwed the handle back on her cane. “Let’s see what you have and then you get the ring.”
They followed Heftek to the back of the building where his armored truck waited in an alley. He bid them wait by the truck’s back door as he went up to the cab. Benny and Zaldine pretended not to hear the swish of liquid in a bottle as Heftek reapplied his buzz. After returning and opening the back, he produced a small box of three bottled pink powder antibiotics and four cases of food.
A bell chimed from the top floor of the church. Zaldine smiled at her as Heftek drove off with his gold. “It’s Christmas day, and we have a wonderful gift of life. Thank you so much, Benny.”
She smiled back. “Thank the Lord Jesus. I thought about trading that ring so many times over the years, but the Lord always told me to hang onto it. I’m glad I listened.”
Inside the medicine was given to Sharee and the food boxes were cut open, emptied, and set aside to repurpose. Each of the cases had an equal amount of canned fruit, soup packets and cups of instant noodles. Benny just had noodles.
Zaldine and Sharee sat with Benny as they enjoyed the simple food.
Zadine swallowed a mouthful and smiled at her. “Not quite the same tables we sat at in our youth, huh BJ?”
Benny smiled at her old nickname. “Oh, it’s shameful to think how we used to gorge ourselves on delicacies.” She said to Sharee, “We even used to have competitions where the point was to see who could shove the most food down their throat in a certain time. I’d trade two of those rings for a big plate full of hotdogs now.”
Sharee looked from one to the other. “What’s a hotdog?” That simple question brought forth a series of stories about food and how much they used to have. The younger people laughed at stories of burgers too big to fit in a mouth and pizzas so wide they had to be carried by two people. Everyone knew what pizzas were, little palm sized treats wrapped in plastic that tasted like they were made from cardboard and year old cheese.
After the feast, hugs, and kisses Benny took the opportunity to walk home. Her heart was not hammering anymore, it was barely beating. She struggled to make it down the dark street so no one would see if she fell. She did not want them to see what she could feel coming.
A block from her apartment the cane slipped out of her hand, and she knew she would go no farther. In a narrow alley, she ducked in and gasped as she slid down to a seated position. She put a hand to her chest but could feel nothing.
A slight noise caused her to turn her head to see the black and beige striped cat step into view. Unharmed by the earlier pursuit, the cat looked around and started to lick one paw. Staring at the cat she had prayed for, Benny let out a dry chuckle that shook her whole body. She was still laughing when she closed her eyes for the last time.
By Aaron Ward
Published by Aaron Ward
Copyright 2023 Aaron Ward
Edition, License Notes
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Original Literature 