Walk in the Woods

The moss and its alert peoplehood, shoulder to shoulder, delicate green antennas, shoulder to shoulder, a sea of tiny green soldiers.

Dried ferns, scorched in arthritic hands of witches.

Why a scared child?

A turquoise car abandoned, bushes of ferns growing through its gaping windows.

Tracks of two-toed moose. Wild turkeys scratched the forest floor for acorns.

A network of plugs drains the spring sap out of maple trees.

Leeches we are, preying on life.

Down we walk along a trail, down, down, until we reach the Beaver’s Pond.

I’m startled by the rummaged landscape.

Death beaver ate its way through the young wood. Bit through it savagely.

Serial killer.

Here a fallen oak tree, majestic once, all chewed up. There a white birch column, massacred, half-drowned in the indifferent mirror of the lake.

Around the lake ridge scores of trees, columns tumbled chaotically, dried branches, sun-bleached skeletons.

As we approach the lake, death realm, the Beaver King furiously slaps his tail against water, to scare us away from his nesting den, his little ones hidden.

As if I care to bother them, disturbed as I am by the death scenery.

This forest ruin of untimely fallen trees is my hometown, forgotten I thought, but still deep in my memory. The beaver eating its own forest.

Instead of shots of green and buds of spring, ants and monster crawlers nest in tree flesh, young tree untimely chewed into death.

A waterfall at the dam, cries, mourning for my young brother, mourning, wailing for the child with bright blue eyes. My memory replaces his drunken young man face with so lovely an infant, my innocent one. I mourn the walks in the woods we never took together, the talks we never had together. The hope I never gave him. My love withheld in grudges and irritation, his adolescent arrogance, foolish squandering of life.

Beaver, don’t chew my soul with the regret I never ministered to my brother. My words might have helped him stay away from death.

I walk closer to the waterfall, its howling pain resonating in my ears, trembling my heart to tears, cry water, cry, cry, cry, cry water tumult, cry out my powerlessness, my splitting pain, cracking open all pain for all those I lost to death, even for those who were unkind. Maybe life taught them regret, before I got to tell them it’s all forgiven, forgotten, don’t blame yourself for the pain you gave me, it’s all forgotten, forgiven, die in peace. It’s all forgiven. I understand now. Look at the buds of green on the spring branches, ready to explode in riots of lively green. I forgive as I hope to be forgiven too.

My brother knew we loved him. He knew all too well, he played us, wrapped us around his little finger. He knew we loved him. He just couldn’t bear life anymore. I can.

Walk, walk, cry now, cry now. Bye now, brother, bye now.

The woods, cracking twigs under my feet, the evergreens mirrored in the reverberating circles of water, remind me of my childhood, of my mother. He didn’t want to leave her womb, he clung to it, scared of the outside, scared of growth, scared of independence.

Why my mother is it so?

I find your comforting love in the burning embers of the camp fire. In its pulsating red glow, your heart, unstoppable glow of love and strength, my mother. Your warm hugs, in the flames and sparks spurred in the darkness you are with me, my mother.

The sizzling sap of the firewood. The smoke stinging my eyes, your sharp tongue.

My mother.

I find you in the crying of the lonely screechy owls. Under the shiny stars, that glitter in spite of weather fortune tellers who predicted snow and cold.

You are, dear mother, in the laughter of my son. In my womb.

In the tallness of the room, in the wooden ceiling and its cracked oak beams you are, as I fall asleep in this friendly home, my Easter sanctuary.

Even in the warm soapy water I wash the dishes in, the memory of childhood and you, my kitchen chores then, scrubbing dishes in the cold water, my umbilical cord still tying me to you as I rinse dishes now.

On the table your chicken and mashed potatoes; we were served tonight your Sundays.

Mother, teach me how not to mourn you while I mourn my brother. Teach me how to be you, my mother, so that I should never miss you, my mother, when your death will come. Teach me how when the door of mourning those taken from me by life or death, when that door cracks open, teach me not to break down, but to be a gracious host.

New Hampshire

2003

Death Has Entered Our House

Here in America we have Halloween, but where I was born they have Illumination, perhaps the equivalent of The Day of the Dead, when people go to the cemetery with candles and flowers. 

[IRINA imagines talking on the phone to her MOTHER who is dressed in black sits at a table with her hands straightening the lace tablecloth. She is exhausted and sad, yet full of dignity and relieved.]
MOTHER
Your brother died, on Saturday.
Death has entered our house.
Oh, my daughter, I was so worried about you. How are you? Life can be so hard for some.
Everybody is terribly, terribly sad. He was so young. The phone rings continuously and that’s why, maybe you can’t catch us.
He died next to me. Lord, I don’t know why I’ve been so cruelly punished.
I was never interested in luxury or other comforts of this world, because you are all my joy. God will help us get through all the trials!
Do you remember our neighbor Gyuszi? He died the same way a year ago. Exactly a year ago. His father came and said, “We can only follow His way.” We cannot do anything. [She crosses herself.]
Mihai had a heart attack. But it was because of… you know, alcohol.
He was sick from the last day of drinking and vomited at 6 a.m.
Then he ate a bit, drank the leftover coffee, and made another one and went to the market. He came back fast. It was Saturday morning. We argued and I asked him not to drink anymore. He said he wouldn’t drink until Easter. "But why do you have to drink on Easter?" "I’ll drink a beer because it’s holiday." We said that on Monday we’d go buy him some handsome blue jeans—I couldn’t give him a lot of money in hand, because he’d drink them with his so-called friends. He said he had to fix his teeth to which I told him after Easter. He said he'd go back to bed—he came drunk from the market. Later on people from the pub told me he drank a few shots of brandy and a Turkish coffee. He was very, very sick, Irina. He never ate anything and got drunk morning, noon and evening. And he drank such strong coffee! He had three teaspoons of Turkish coffee to a cup and drank about 2 or 3 a day plus two cigarette packs a day.
It was about 9, 10, I don’t remember exactly. He was on the floor. Adrian saw him falling on the floor, but the little scoundrel jumped on him, poked his nose with his fingers, such a naughty child! Then he came to play out in the yard and didn’t tell me anything! After awhile I went in to check on him and saw him on the floor. The coat he wore in the morning was rolled under his head, his face was turned towards the door. He had a cigarette in hand between his fingers spread on the rug. Maria told me I should take the cigarette from his hand to avoid putting the carpet on fire. I could barely pull the cigarette out, he was clutching the cigarette—probably he was already dead. I covered him with two blankets. It wasn’t the first time he was sleeping in front of the bed on the rug. He couldn’t climb into the bed.
After half an hour I checked on him again. I was surprised to see he was in the same position on the rug. I shouted at him, I shook him up, make him get into the bed! He was not moving! I rubbed his back, but he didn’t react in any way. Again I didn’t realize he was dead. I called the ambulance of course, then a neighbor, then Maria. The two women stated that Mihai was dead. I still didn’t believe it. Meanwhile the ambulance arrived and unfortunately the doctor too confirmed he was dead and there was nothing that could be done. He died in two minutes.
Heart attack. He didn’t suffer.
It’s in God’s hands.
April 12, 2003: The saddest day of my life.
Don’t fear, I'll be alright! You don’t need to come home now. I know it’s hard with the green card papers.
All that money. Of course you can’t come home! Take care of yourselves. Do you have enough food to eat? I pray for you every day. Every single day. You don’t manage too brilliantly in America. You have your own trouble. Please don’t get ill.
He was very, very unhappy! He went through a divorce. Being a handsome boy, the girls loved him, but he fell for those he shouldn’t have.
He never listened to us. We wanted him to go to college to Cluj, close to home, but he went to the Aircraft Institute in Bucharest. He placed 8 out of the 100 seats, regardless of all the connections the other candidates had. In high school he always got prizes in the national math Olympics.
He suffered because of the social injustice. He couldn’t find work. Without money or connections, his intelligence was worth nothing. He had no one to help him go abroad, and we had no money to give him to that end. Without an occupation he drowned his bitterness in alcohol.
After Gyuszi died because of alcohol, he got a bit scared and checked in at the internal ward. They diagnosed him with etilism and recommended him not to drink a drop of alcohol, but he didn’t obey the doctor’s advice. I tried to discuss it with him be it in a peaceful way, be it harshly.
Lord, how fearful I was for him. I saw him walking down the road of ruin and I couldn’t help him with anything.
Most of the time he wouldn’t acknowledge his drinking bouts. Lately he didn’t care about anything. At times he turned violent. He couldn’t control himself. My heart was breaking for him.
Not for a second did I think that he could die of a heart attack. We thought of cirrhosis of the liver, that has a slower evolution and meanwhile we hoped he’d give up drinking.
He was sent to the psychiatry ward at the state hospital, but he would not hear of it. I gave him money to go to a private clinic, but he kept postponing. He had no appetite, no desire to live. "Mother, tell me one single reason to keep on living!" he would say.
He was so kind and loved by everybody. Everybody knew him. Everybody came from all over the town, to tell us how sorry they were. Even the Gypsies came! Everybody loved him. Our townspeople are very kind when it comes to distress. The relatives came from Turda, cousin Nelu and Puiu, and from Braşov, cousin Dorel and uncle Cosmin and Aurica.
The first part of funeral service was in the front yard. It was all black with people, the street too! We had three priests and a deacon. The sermon was two hours. Though it was a sad day, God was kind: it didn’t rain.
The hearse went along with your brother and sister in front, next to your father and a few relatives. I went by car. The cemetery is a bit out of the way.
We cried until we ran out of tears. Our poor son! The pain is killing us. Our relatives comforted us a bit. We are sadder, older and poorer…
The priests said we should focus on Easter and cleanse ourselves from sin. We should not gather riches, because we won’t take them with us. We should think of Jesus Christ.
It was a beautiful sermon.
I can’t remember all of it now. My head is in a fuzzy cloud. I’m tired. Your father hasn’t slept since Mihai died.
[She cries, heartbroken.]
We were very, very ill on Sunday, but your sister gave us pills and checked on our blood pressure. At least your father stopped drinking. He got scared. We told him, "Please, please, tati, don’t drink anymore, don’t drink, please." And he said, "No, no. I haven’t had a drink today. It’s the enemy number one, alcohol. No, no…"
Catrina didn’t go to work since Friday, but today she had to go. All her patients were waiting for her. She had to go.
How is Sorin? Is he tall and handsome like your father? He should take care with the bike, so that he should not get in trouble again. He should ride cautiously!
They did the autopsy and then we brought him home. At dawn I lit the candle for him, and we put him in the earth. The eternal place is a bit out of the way. We took the money that we put aside for our funerals and used it for him. Who would have thought?
Nowadays if you can’t fend for yourself, no one helps you. His wife gave us the place next to her mother, and we are thinking of buying two lots for ourselves there, to be near him. Though it’s a bit out of the way.
Not many came up to the cemetery. We had 45 guests for the memorial dinner. The priests sanctified the house, and his room. They put a crucifix in it.
I’ll start going to church. I’ll go to the little church on Flowers Street.
Oh, they fixed it quite well after the revolution. There are a lot of churches now!
I’m afraid I’ll go crazy, my dear. I was sitting at the table and thinking, I shall tell him when he comes from the pub how wonderful was his funeral! Then I thought, but he won’t come home anymore! Maybe I’m losing my mind, my dear…
I’ll talk to him. People talk to the dead, don’t they? They go to the cemetery and talk to them. Though they’re gone. We don’t know, we don’t know, maybe they are still around.
Such pain I don’t wish to any mother on earth. There is no greater pain in this world than to lose your child, the one you gave birth to, you raised him. I remember his first steps, his first words, his first smile. I loved him with all my being. A piece of my heart was torn away with him. Some console me, "Don’t be desperate because you have other children." But it’s not like that, because in the heart of a mother each child has his own place. Nothing can substitute that loss. I’ll take this pain to the tomb with me, that can’t be far. There we will see each other again. That’s my only hope.
We were like this, around the house, the two of us, all day. He was, you know, a… different kind of child. He didn’t listen to us.
Ever since he was small he was very energetic. When he came to this world he was 4.850 kilos—he was the maternity ward’s star. Each time we changed his diapers he kicked strongly with his little legs. He was a beautiful child, with a sweet smile, loved by everyone. When he was seven, he went with a friend who had a dog and didn’t come home in the afternoon. We looked for him everywhere. Oh, Lord, how I got scared! In the end I called the police and they searched for him and when we were desperate he shows up and climbs into the apricot tree! No matter how much the police or I begged him, he didn’t want to get down from the tree. We were happy that we found him.
We feel so guilty that we were harsh with him, but we thought it was for his own good. We wanted him not to waste himself. For his own good! We would quarrel, the two of us; he’d come and go about business. Now he’s gone.
Oh, there were so many wreaths on his tomb. His wife brought a white one, made of fresh carnations. It was covered with wreathes. I bought one on your behalf too. On the ribbons it was written: From Irina and Sorin. We’ll never forget you.
AUTOMATIC PHONE CARD ANNOUNCEMENT
You have one minute left.
MOTHER
I bought a red one, your color. It was made out of paper, so that it lasts for six weeks. Then we’ll have a memorial service and we’ll clean the tomb.
This is the situation. I’ll open the store tomorrow.
The neighbors come and tell me, "Open the store, stay among people, otherwise you might go nuts or fall sick." Father couldn’t go to the market these days. He felt ill. He talked all night with Dorel, and he stayed in bed today. Catrina takes care of us. Gives us pills.
Today I gave back the extra cooking pots to our neighbors. The guests left in the morning… Hello? Hello?
[The phone line gets cut off. Blackout.]

Written in 2004

Bathroom Stories: Attending

Originally written on 10/02/2005 this piece is the transcript of a recording made during a stand-up comedy performance at Raw Meat, a show produced by Tamar Kummel.

I understand I'm supposed to entertain you with sad stories about immigrants, and the more miserable the story the more you laugh?! 

Well, when I go home with my boyfriend, on the M line, towards Ridgewood, my Eastern European enclave, my life doesn’t feel that miserable. Especially now after Katrina hit New Orleans. I went to graduate school there, then moved to New York City.

On the subway I look to the left, I look to the right, everywhere miserable Eastern European ladies with a smirk of superiority on their faces. Indignant hisses, “Oh, my God! Is he nibbling on her neck?! Look! Is he putting his hand between her thighs?! Why isn’t she like us, bedraggled, respectable, middle-age mothers, daughters of saintly mothers who under communism hauled shopping bags, stayed in line all day long for a chicken, a bottle of milk and three toilet paper rolls! We go home tired, make dinner for our grumpy Borises who ravish young girls behind our backs and we’re getting none! We sacrifice ourselves, wash old folks' behinds all day long, clean apartments and send money home. We didn’t come here to have a good time! We came here to sacrifice!”

Well then, sacrifice!

I have two graduate degrees, yet I work as a bathroom attendant at Copacabana, the famous night club, you know, like in the song, “Her name is Lola, she was a show girl… Music and passion were always in fashion at the Copa, Copa Cabana, the hottest bar in Havana…” Regrettably now has gone downhill. Still New Yorkers throw $50,000 private parties at Copa, as if even more lavish since Katrina. Bar mitzvahs, birthday parties, prom parties, engagement parties, employee-appreciation parties, divorce parties, Emmy Awards after-parties.

Yesterday we had seven-tier cascading chocolate fountains, think historical monument size, Fontana di Trevi if you please, a three-foot wide, infinitely-tiered, Empire Building birthday cake, a clown squad, and an amusement arcade for some kids who in the end ran around in socks on the huge dance floor chasing each other. The beaming parents and adult guests don’t tip in the bathroom. I froze for five hours, bathrooms at Copa are freezers, summer, winter, it doesn’t matter. The management couldn’t care less. I wear my winter clothes in the summer too. I bundle up with woolen shawls, Cossack fur caps and boots. Teeth chattering, I hand out paper towels. Patrons could get them from the wall dispenser, but my boss told me to show guests utmost consideration, thus deserving a tip.

In my four-stall bathroom, water springs from the tile floor. This is a world-renowned institution, but every night I have to fight with the kitchen boys over mops. The bathroom is a marsh. If I can’t get a mop, it’s a nightmare. Water bubbles up in the first stall, then spreads into the second, then reaches out to the third. I sweep it into the floor drain weep hole, dry the floor with paper towels galore, but I can’t keep up with the flooding. Patrons are insulted, thinking they step in urine not water, and so they don’t tip the lazy bathroom attendant.

In despair I give up. I sit on my chair and read Love and Longing in Bombay. I want to write a best-seller mystery book. If I do, I’m out of the bathroom. I’m on a mystery-research binge. I watch DVDs with Cadfel and Mrs. Bradley, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Mrs. Jessica Fletcher, Inspector Morse and read Hannibal Lectern, Good Cop Bad Cop, and police blotters in the papers. On the subway I see suspects everywhere. A woman forcing a pacifier in a crying baby’s mouth is a kidnapper. A mousy accountant calculating on her phone, an undercover cop. The guy in shorts over there ogling a young blonde, a prowling sex offender.

But at work I can’t read for long. I have my merchandise displayed around the two sinks: bobby pins, scrunches, hair mousse spray, hand lotion, lipstick, mascara, candy, mints, slippers, tampons. If you want to borrow my hair spray, or need a safety pin, or a Band-Aid, place a dollar in my tip jar. Some find the $1 tip outrageous and haggle. "What? One dolla’? One dolla’ fo’ a lollipop? Gina, listen to dis: one dolla’ fo’ da lollipop! At da dolla’ store you get a bag o’ dem fo’ one dolla’!” “Honey,” you get away with a lot if you throw a honey in, “Honey, if you don’t like it, beat it. Get your lollipop at the dollar store, okay. It’s 2 a.m. and you’re at Copa.” Some slam the candy back in the basket, some belligerently hand in the dollar. Entitled skunks.

One self-righteous woman, after she realized she wouldn’t get my candy for free, moaned, “It’s not fair!” She took out her wad of hundreds and twenties. She said uppity, “Do you have change?” “Yes, honey, I have change.”

Some even steal. I sell plastic slippers for $5. By midnight glammed-up girls stagger into the bathroom, “Give me slippers! I can’t bear these high heels anymore! My feet are killing me.” and I sell my slippers. Last night a girl passed out in the stall and I had to go on the dance floor to get the bouncer. As I was walking out a woman asked me if I had slippers size 7. “Yes, just a minute.” I keep a stash of slippers under my chair, the popular sizes, 7, 8, 9. When I came back with the bouncer, I leaned under the chair to give the woman the slippers. The size 7 was gone! Only its empty plastic bag and a pair of broken high heels! I turned around and saw in the first stall two feet with my slippers on. When the woman came out, “Hey, where’s my money?! You took my slippers!” “I left you those in return!” “Are you kidding me?!” She ran before I could catch her. Thief. She didn’t come back, shook her bootie on the dance floor.

I have to work while people dance. Actually they don’t dance, they’re grinding all night long. The girl’s butt rubs up and down the guy’s crotch. I’m so disgusted when I crash to sleep that I tell my boyfriend to stop his sexual overtures. I slap his fingers when he tries to play radio buttons with my nipples. Then I get depressed that I can’t leave work at work. It’s not his fault that I’m sick of people. But how could I be otherwise? I watch them getting drunk, taking drugs, smoking cigarettes, weed, pouring chemicals in their bodies, having fun… Some fun. I’ll have fun if I get to write my mystery book. But I need a crime idea. I have no experience with crime.

Have you stolen a cell phone? Or not returned the ones you found?

Well, they always forget their cell phones in the bathroom, being drunk. Some look for them in despair, some don’t. At the beginning I’d make sure they got their phones back. I had one stolen myself and I’d lost several, so I’d sympathize. I’d call them, go out of my way to deliver their devices, but after awhile, since the dames wouldn’t offer a coffee or a tip, when I found a phone in the stall I put it in my bag and ran with it to the kitchen. I looked at its pictures. It was a camera phone like the one a padlock peddler had stolen from me while I was working as a bar tender at a watering hole in Ridgewood. I was perusing his merchandise while he vanished my phone. After he left I realized he’d stolen it. I cried but the phone was gone. I paid a week’s wage for a new one, without a camera.

Anyway, I looked and I saw a bottle blonde with two fatso girls, then same blonde showing off her boobs, then her buttocks, various angles, then she with an equally naked booby girlfriend, then her happy guy, a fatso trucker, and more buttocks. This was not a bedraggled mom, gone on a night on the town for the first time in a year. I decided not to give her phone back, but sell it. I had to pay steep fees for my Romanian passport renewal at the embassy.

When desperate Booby came staggering to look for it I said, “I don’t know. I was on my coffee break. Check the stalls.” I was glad I’d turned off her phone, in case someone called her number.

For a few days we laughed at her porn with my boyfriend, but then we realized we couldn’t sell it, didn’t have the criminal connections, the device was worthless, and it just got forgotten in a corner. At times I wanted to call Booby, return her phone, but I was ashamed. Might be crime isn’t in my nature. I’ll never write a crime novel...

Now I give lost phones back. Still, they don’t tip.

Anyway, by the end of the night I’m to deal with more drunk women vomiting on the floor, spilling their beer cups around, and still no mop. If I tell the floor managers—assorted distraught females who scurry about like under bombardment, as if they haven’t been doing this mighty strenuous floor management work since 1975!—they half listen to my complaining about the flooding and scarcity of mops, but don’t help me. Why should they? It’s Copa! We don’t need quality service. Revelers flock from all over the world, each night a new wave of suckers. We don’t need repeat customers.

A Polish friend, Milos the mechanic, calls to tell me his sorrows. His boss used to play the trombone. But once, tired after playing at a wedding, his trombone fell out of the back of his truck and another car ran over it. He opened an auto repair shop and hung his flattened trombone on the wall.

So now he sold an old car, promising he’d replace the engine. But he got carried away and sold the engine to another customer, telling the first one, “Oh, don't worry, Milos will get you another one.” How?! That car model was discontinued 20 years ago!

Milos lost many friends because of his boss' lies. The boss said, “This is how you sell in America.” Milos said, “At least I sell my expertise and time, but you sell lies.” His boss turned red as a brick.

I say quickly good-bye to Milos, hide my phone. My own boss, Miss Voica, another sour Eastern European, has descended upon me. Miss Voica, the sinful Copa’s bathroom chieftain is a dedicated church-goer. At closing time workers grab the costly flower decorations before they’re thrown to the garbage. We take them home. I always get Miss Voica a bouquet too, still she constantly plucks the best stems out of my own bouquet, for her church altar.

She’s a small woman, in her black and white uniform resembles a penguin, walks like one. She checks herself in the mirror, “I’m a slob! Look at all these rolls upon rolls of belly fat I’ve acquired since I came to America! I used to be like a stick! 60 kilos! Now I’m 99! They mess up the food with growth hormones. I read in Aura… excellent magazine! I started their diet yesterday. I ate only three apples. I feel so light. Today I can eat a bit of cheese. I had to start the diet all over again.”

Alas, I’ve heard her story of crushed hopes ten times already.

“Last Sunday I went to a birthday party, the priest’s little one turned five, and I ate fish. Look at all these layers of lard! Slob! Aura forbids coffee, but I can’t! I work twenty hours a day, I sleep only four.”

Greedy Miss Voica. During day she is a full-time accountant at a nursing home. Instead of letting others to work more, like myself, I need the money, she grabs the prime time slots, since she’s the boss.

Anyway, my tribulations compared to Katrina victims’ misery stories are nothing.

New York

October 11th, 2013

The Scourge Cycle: Miracles

In the summer of 2011, during my stay in Romania, I went through a period of spiritual anguish thanks to a jerk. I cursed him and the dame with whom he sneaked behind my back. But my cursing them didn’t help me at all. I then sought solace and forgetfulness. To expedite the process, I endeavored to go on a pilgrimage, since I saw posters plastered on city walls announcing one that weekend. I thought that if Orthodoxy wouldn’t help, maybe the beauty of the Romanian landscape would. And I was curious to see what would happen if I surrounded myself with believers. I walked the mountain paths leading to hermitages and caves of hermits with my fellow pilgrims, I slept in communal bedrooms. I remember fondly how loudly were snoring the blessed tired faithful ones.
Most fondly I remember Silvia, the organizer, a lively, beautiful and elegant woman, with a laughter like tiny bells that for me was more healing than the whole trip.
The names are fictitious because she asked me to avoid publicity for her spiritual endeavor.

I’ve wondered when you said that much of your life is made of miracles and pilgrimages, and you’ve told me about a few miracles.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! My life without God wouldn’t exist. In God I trust and God forbid I should get to live without God. So I can say that my life, starting with my youth, I got married at 17, was very unhappy. Fate gave me a man who drinks, he brought upon me so much unhappiness, and I greatly took refuge in fasting and prayers, in the Divine Power. Only in God I found peace, only in God I found consolation.
You’ve started so young?
Yes, and I’d barely finish one fast and I’d start another one, that’s how I lived. Like, always on Fridays, and also other fast after fast, whichever I just heard of. I’d fast and fast, repeatedly, N times, indeed even N times, to make sure that I get good results, I had ambition and I hoped that God would not let me pray in vain, that eventually one day God would bestow on me His goodness.
Then, people knowing me and seeing how much I struggled with my husband who drank a lot, a woman sent me to the Franciscan Church in Cluj. More precisely it’s by the Telephone Company in the Museum Square, the church that is dedicated to Saint Anthony.
There were monks who’d sleep there, I don’t know if they still live there, but monks lived in tiny little rooms along a hallway that lead to the street entrance. And I was received by a priest, an older monk, and I started to tell him about my life, I began to talk to him like to my best friend. Indeed I never said a word about my sorrow to my parents, or to my brother, or my sisters. The only people on earth I’d tell about all my problems were the priests.
But why did you not say anything to your family?
I couldn’t because my mother was rather sickly and it was more than enough what they got to see happening to me. No need for them to know also what they didn’t see. I'm a woman that doesn’t like to cry on anybody’s shoulder. Always in the morning I tell my troubles to God. I kneel down and then I cry for half an hour, one hour, then I tell everything to God, and then I get moving, and I can keep on smiling.
That’s how I dealt with it, I’d say all my problems to priests and monks when I went to monasteries. So I arrived in front of this priest and began to tell him, but I couldn’t talk from crying. I sighed; I could hardly speak thru my tears. And I told him, “Look, how hard it is, and sure, I wanted to divorce him but he told me, he was very bad when he got drunk, raising hell with everyone, jumping on their heads, eager to fight with them, and so I was afraid of him, even more so that he threatened that if I get a divorce he’d kill me.
I also thought if I get a divorce I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t live in the same house with him; it would have been terrible, woe to me if I made him my enemy. And so I had to stay married to him and had to endure so I can raise my children. Saying all this stuff, very troubled, to the priest, at one point I said, "Father, I pray to God so much and I always fast, and God never," I said it with disappointment, "God never listens to my prayers." And then I wiped the tears from my face with my hand, my backhand, as if I see him now, and he says, "I’ll hold a prayer service every evening at midnight. If after this he doesn’t get cured from this disease, then I recommend that you divorce him. It would be a pity to spend your youth this way."
I then, hearing him telling me to divorce, I immediately thought of my children and then as if I saw a child, the little one, pained, my two year old whom my husband loved more, the one that now works with me. And then I saw in front of me how I pulled my older child away and my husband the smaller one. I got so scared and I said, "No, I don’t want a divorce," although nothing tied me to my husband, there was no love between us after so much anguish and suffering, 13 years of it, especially since I didn’t marry him out of love. I was a dumb girl who was ashamed to tell him, "No, man, I don’t love you." And so I had to continue my life. When I told the priest I didn’t want to divorce him, he said, "Well, you kneel down and I’ll pray to God to listen to you in your prayers, since from what you say I see that you pray enough." And I knelt down, I covered my face with my hands, and began to pray. He put his hand on my head, put some book on my head, I know he placed a book and began to pray for me to make God hear me in my prayers.
At one point, I know this stuff didn’t last long, but I prayed, I’ll never forget, I prayed, "Holy God, in whatever form You want and however You can, just stop him from drinking, whichever way You see fit." And then at that point I know I heard a man's voice and two hands appeared in front of my face. The two hands of a man, and the voice said, "Kiss my hands." I got hold of those hands and I desperately kissed those hands, like I never kissed anyone in my life.
I relive these moments... and I could not get enough of kissing those hands. The priest prayed further on and then at some point I didn’t see the hands in front of me anymore. Then I got up and I didn’t know what was going on around me anymore. I know I paid the priest, I took money from my wallet, I don’t know how much money I paid, and I went out. I worked at the Health Department, I don’t even know what street I took from the priest, only that I arrived in front of the Health Department, as if I woke up from a dream. Perhaps it was Memorandum Street or perhaps I came thru the Museum Square, but I don’t know what street I came on. And when I got to the Health Department as if I woke up from a dream and I said, then I saw those palms in front of my face, I saw myself kissing those hands, I heard that voice, "Kiss the hands!" and then fear, unrest, descended upon me, and I said, “Lord,” and I immediately thought that the priest said, “If my midnight prayers don’t help him, then nothing will help him.” And then I thought, "Lord, I offended God. How could I..." and I thought I must have kissed the hands of the priest. "How could I kiss that priest's hands so fondly?! I’ve never kissed anyone like I kissed those hands in my life. How I could kiss his hands! This priest is not sane, to ask me to kiss his hands. I’ve spoken with so many priests but no one did such a gesture.” And then I realized that only to Lord Jesus I would have kissed His hands like this. And that thought gave me no peace all day long.
I went home at night, I took care of the household chores, and in the morning when I came to work, on the bus, I was commuting from the countryside, and when I got off the bus such weakness took over me as if my legs and feet were tied up, like never before, I've always been an energetic person, I didn’t know what was happening to me. Somehow I arrived at the institute. I was alone, since every morning, since I was a commuter, I arrived earlier. Each time I arrived earlier, before the cleaning lady came in, I’d kneel down, I’d put a small icon in front of me, and I’d lift my hands and begin to cry out desperately to God. I was utterly wailing. Only there I could open up, voice all my hardships, knowing nobody could hear me. So that morning I started to pray as usual. I felt so drowsy and powerless. And I thought to myself, “I’ll put my head on the table, on the desk, to rest, just for 5 minutes, until this overwhelming tiredness eases away.” Well, I don’t know how long I rested, but perhaps little, perhaps just a few seconds or minutes, I can’t say, but I found myself in front of the sink at about two meters away from the desk where I rested my head. I woke up shivering all over, like I was shaken by electricity. A voice had woken me up. A female voice. She shouted and my ears could hear her words echoing, like in a forest when you shout in a forest and it echoes. Just that echo sounded in my ears and she told me.... Each word began so very, very loud, that it shook me, and then it faded slowly, gradually until one word ended and then another word began, but the words were very, very spaced out, the woman said those words at intervals, making sure I understood. And she said, "Why do you keep thinking that you did wrong kissing the hands of the priest? No!" And she stressed the no, "No! You didn’t kiss his hands but you kissed the hands of Jesus. And as fondly as you’ve kissed them, so fondly will Jesus fulfill your wishes." These were the exact words that I heard in my ears, the ones that I tell you, so she didn’t say, “Lord Jesus”, she said exactly these words.
When she finished the last word, "wishes", I woke up in front of the sink, shaking all over, and I was scared when I saw how I trembled, and I struggled to catch my hands, to keep my hands steady, to stop the shaking, and I asked myself, I looked around, if someone would have seen me, they’d thought I was crazy. I looked around and I asked myself, "Who has talked to me?" When I said the second time, "Who has talked to me?" a thought came to me, "Our Savior’s Mother shouted from heaven,” for I prayed a lot to the Virgin Mary, for so many years during fasting, for so many times I kept all sorts of novenas in the honor of Our Lady, and I so prayed and cried in front Our Lady’s icon and shouted, "Mother! Mother!" and I’d cry in my despair, "Mother! You’re my Mother who gave me life! Only You can help me! Why have You abandoned me? I am Your child, don’t You see me how I struggle on this earth?" And when I thought that must have been the Mother of God who called from heaven, then my shaking stopped. It simply went away and then I started crying with joy and said, I was convinced that it was Our Lady who called me, and I’m convinced even now that the Mother of God called from heaven, and I said, "Oh, Holy Mother!" I started crying, such a bliss and peace enveloped me. "Our Holy Mother, this means that You talked to Your Son and You know that He listens to my prayers. Then I have to pray even more to deserve His miracle." And then, I know it was mid-week, I’m not sure, I don’t want to lie, but I don’t know if it was Wednesday or Thursday. I think it was a Thursday, I think it was a Thursday, but I won’t lie, because on Thursdays I always keep Saint Rita’s novena. Any issues I have I passionately keep Saint Rita’s novenas. During those 13 years I’ve kept much of Saint Rita’s novenas. Starting with Thursday, that is from Thursday every day: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, until next Wednesday in honor of Saint Rita you don’t eat until noon, and even then only fasting, vegetarian meals, you fast. So one week I’d dedicate my fast to Saint Rita, among other saints’ fasts, among which some were for sure in the honor of the Holy Mother, in honor of Jesus Christ, in honor of Saint Thaddeus, in honor of Saint Theresa. I prayed both to the Catholic and the Orthodox saints. I desperately prayed to Saint Anthony of Padua on many Tuesdays during my fasting.
And, as I’ve said, I decided that I needed to pray more. The next week, I started to pray on Monday, and I hold fast for Our Lady on Monday, for seven weeks. Monday, the first day, the second week on Tuesday, the third week on Wednesday, so on, until the seventh week was on Sunday. Monday, as I say, I started fasting for the Holy Mother, Tuesday, the next day, I started the fast for Saint Anton, for nine Tuesdays, and just the same for nine weeks on Thursday, as I told you, I call Saint Rita my friend Rita from the sky, so I began keeping Saint Rita’s novenas on Thursdays. For a week I ate only from noon onwards.
At that time, oh, how many times my husband got fired because of his drinking! Now he had alcoholic hepatitis, and he wouldn’t keep his diet. When I got home from work I’d always find him drunk, sleeping, and sure I’d start doing the household chores and left him alone. And then one day he wakes up, he was drunk and fell asleep, so he wakes up and he was only in an undershirt, it was summer, and he was all red blotches on his arms and hands, his entire skin was covered in red blotches. And he comes to me scared and shows me his hands and arms and says, "Look how spotted are my hands!" I was expecting any moment, any moment now, to see the wonders and miracles of God, that God begins His work. And so I say, "But do go on drinking." Of course I thought it's from the liver, knowing that he had alcoholic hepatitis, and I say, "Just go on drinking, though you can’t force your liver to endure your bullshit, but do drink on." And I went on with my chores around the house.
Since that moment he didn’t drink for an entire week, in spite of being deeply alcoholic.
After a week he tells me that he’ll come to town to find work, he’d say that to cover up that his body craved drinking. And he went to his sister’s who lived in Mănăştur District. His sister, in vain she served him food, like any other drunkard he only wanted to drink, though his family scolded him not to drink, but this is how it goes with drunkards, you can’t do much. And so she serves him a drink. At that moment, his sister told me, at that moment when he first drank a drop of alcohol he began to tremble! He said it was as if he was shaken by electricity, shaking all over, and he heard in his head, he heard many voices saying, "You’re dying! You’re dying!"
He freaked out when he heard someone telling him he was dying, he cried aloud, "I'm dying, I'm dying!" while he was shaking. At one point the tremors stopped and he recovered, as if nothing had happened. His sister, when she saw how he trembles, phoned me at work, "Quickly, come quickly! Radu is about to die!" When I arrived, I rushed by taxi, when I got there, he had recovered, there was nothing wrong anymore. Well, then, in the moment, I couldn’t think straight and didn’t realize that that was God’s miracle. I said to myself, “Who knows what happened to him.” But I didn’t think, “This is how a Divine miracle starts and thru this trial he’ll give up drinking!”
A few days passed, of course when he drank I couldn’t leave my children in his hand because I could not rely on him. So then every weekend on Sunday evening I took my children to my mother's and left them for the week. So, as usual, on Sunday evening I take the kids to my mother and he enters the bar, he came with us, and he went to the bar as usual, that’s how he always said, "Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you," though my parents live close by, in the village center, and are close to that bar. But he always arrived after two, three hours, dead drunk, he couldn’t stand up on his feet. Well, on that day when he says, "Go, I’ll catch up with you," I don’t even get to my parents’ when he goes running by very scared, he walks past me and says, "It happened again!" When I get into the yard I ask, "What has happened to you?" "I tried!" he says. "Haven’t I told you what had happened to me at my sister?! Now I tried to drink beer, I thought I had allergy to hard liquor, and I tried to see if beer was okay, and the first drop I put in my mouth, again I began to tremble and heard those voices telling me I was dying, and I was ashamed of the people in the bar, and I slammed the beer bottle on the table and I ran out, so the guys won’t see me trembling."
This passed too, but still I didn’t think it was again God’s miracle, though I saw that he no longer drank for a week, and only when he started to, there was nothing wrong with him otherwise, only when he put the first drop of alcohol in his mouth it would happen again. And this repeated each time he tried to drink. He was so held up in this evil passion/torment, and of course the Evil One didn’t want to let him out of His hand, He didn’t want to let him escape His power, but I was still praying, I was praying every night at midnight, along with the priest, as he told me that we’d both pray at midnight with lighted candles. Even if I went to sleep earlier I’d wake up, I’d set my alarm clock, and I prayed with him at midnight for God to stop my husband from drinking. And so this repeated as often as he’d try to drink. It went like this for a year. For one year he didn’t want, though he saw that this happened each time, but still for a whole year every two, three weeks, one week, he’d try another drink. I think he tested every drink possible. Eventually he ended up seeing a doctor, “Look what is happening to me, I can’t drink anymore!” And the doctor told him, "Listen, Sir, if that sort of thing happens, though I've never heard something like that in my entire life, but if that sort of thing happens, it means that you have to stop drinking, and that's it. Stop once and for all." And since then, 14 years passed since he doesn’t drink anymore. Praised be the Lord, He saved me from this heavy burden and took off this cross from my shoulders. He saved him from this calamity. Now he too no longer suffers drunkards and I always say when he sees a drunkard raising hell, I say, "Look, this is how you were yourself! I don’t know how I put up with you for so many years."
And what does he do now?
Oh, well… It’s still hard on me, he doesn’t work much. I still have to carry my cross but not for that passion/torment. It’s still hard on me. My children, whatever they need they say, "Mom, we need this," and sometimes when I’m annoyed I say, "Don’t you have a father too?" But what can I do?
Will you tell me about how you started doing monastery tours? Did you go before as a pilgrim there?
Yes, I went on pilgrimages, I went because this was the refuge from my everyday life. My children were young. I can say I’ve been to monasteries for about 18, 19 years and the kids were small and I was so poor, I’d hid now and then one leu, two, one penny and I gathered them, well, when the occasion came to go on a pilgrimage, so I too could run and make the pilgrimage, so I could pay its cost. And so I started to go to monasteries and so much peace I could find there, and I found so much joy when I got at the monasteries. I wanted so much to become a nun. How many times after I started to go to the monasteries, whenever I entered a monastery I was thinking, "When my children grow older I’ll become a nun!" and I’d cry, oh, I cried so much at the monasteries and I’d think, "Should I come to this monastery?" After I saw another one, "Or should I come here?" But I was thinking of becoming a nun at a monastery closer to home, closer to Cluj, so my children could come to see me. But the first monastery that impressed me was the Posada hermitage. I went with other women on a Saturday night, it was the Transfiguration, so it was August 5^th when I went, I don’t know what year. The celebration is on the 6^th and we went on the 5^th, ahead of time, to stay during the Midnight Office on the Transfiguration Eve. Well, when I got in that courtyard, it was the first monastery I’d visited, I felt at every step that God was with me, I felt a strong energy overshadowing me with Divine Power and I began to cry with joy. And as long as the prayer service lasted during vespers, and then during the Compline and Midnight Office services, oh, there was his Holiness Vasile Someșanul, he was our Archbishop then, and Andreicuț who was the Bishop of Alba County. There were very, very many priests.
I was so happy that I put a blanket under me and there I knelt until midnight and I cried nonstop, so very happy to be there. When the Midnight Office Liturgy finished I said to the other women, “Let’s go to sleep.” There was no accommodation whatsoever, so I asked the priest to let us sleep in the church. And each woman put her blanket on the floor and we slept in the church. But the father said, "I let you sleep here but don’t talk because I sleep myself in the altar for I don’t have a place to sleep either, so don’t talk." We went to sleep. I couldn’t sleep at all. I couldn’t sleep because my bones ached on the hard floor, covered only with jute rugs, like it was in the old times. So then, I thought about things and I kept on looking at the paintings in the church, I kept on praying till five in the morning. At five o’clock, there is a miraculous spring in Posada, so then I went out and talked with several women, "Let's go take Holy Water, Miraculous Water, because at six starts the maslu/ Holy Unction prayer service, and then after the maslu/Holy Unction prayers end the Matins Liturgy service begins." And so we did. I attended the maslu/Holy Unction prayers, then after that the liturgy on that great feast of August 6^th, the Transfiguration, and all was well and good. I felt so very good, and since the meaning of the feast of the 6^th of August is Lord Jesus transfigured on Mount Tabor, as I was up there on the mountain at the monastery I felt like I was on Mount Tabor where Lord Jesus Christ’ face was transfigured. I was so happy. I felt that I was where the miracle had happened. And when I heard Bishop Andrei leading us in singing, "Oh, Holy Mother!" since this holiday is during the fast of the Holy Mother of Our Lord, I realized that when the Sainted Liturgy service would end, I’d have to go back home, and I started crying. My heart was in such sorrow that I had to go back home, oh, why, when I was so happy there! I even thought, "God, why should I go home?! Living without love!" I had found so much love in God. And when the Mass finished, I kept on thinking how I could just not go home. But in that very moment when I was thinking how I could just not go home, "I have to go, I have young children!" and as I took a step towards our bus, and climbed thru its back door, I thought regretfully I cannot remain at the monastery.
And this is how my love for monasteries started. When I arrived home I told my husband, my children. I never thought that my children being quite small, I didn’t think that by telling them that I was sorry I didn’t stay at the monastery would affect my children. I cried and said, “I'm sorry I haven’t stayed there.” And Adrian being the smallest it remained in his memory and whenever I went somewhere to a monastery said, "Mother, please do not stay at the monastery!"
And when I returned from the monastery, being so affected and feeling such love for the monasteries a very strange thing happened to me, I can say now. I’d often, while washing dishes or cooking food in the house, or while cleaning, I’d hear in my head, I’d hear the choir singing, the monks from Posada. I truly heard them singing and I’d put my work aside, I missed hearing them, I so missed the monastery, and I’d go to the nursery, I’d sit on the children’s bed and listen to the choir. Upon my word, that's what would happen to me. If I talk about it people think I’m crazy, but it truly happened to me, I heard that chorus singing for me and I was so happy. At some point I’d no longer hear it and then I’d get up from their bed and go back to work.
And this is how I got my love for monasteries and so many divine miracles happened.
Another time I was at the Bistrița Monastery and I was, all my life I've worked everything if my husband didn’t kill himself with work, I had to work all day long, and I had to work as a hairdresser, which business had its years of glory, indeed years during which I was able to work as much as my powers let me, so I worked both at home and at work. But I got sick and I went to the Bistrița Monastery. I wasn’t hurting or anything but during the day working or walking on the road I had bouts of weakness in the stomach and I trembled. I felt so bad that I’d almost faint, fell down. Often while I’d cut hair I feared I’d fall on the client. And I’d get something sweet to eat and I’d recover. I did my blood work. Doctors told me that all my tests were good. Nobody found anything wrong but I had this problem at least once, twice a day I felt this dizziness and this weakness in my body. And, as I say, I went to the Bistriț

a Monastery. It was raining so hard when the bus reached the monastery that everybody said, "We won’t get off, the whole country rains down on us." It was a pouring rain. And I said to a woman, "Let's go in the rain, even if we aren’t dressed lightly for summer we’ll still dry off." And we arrived at the monastery. And when I entered the monastery it was the first time when I stepped in that monastery. I felt such a deep Divine Power on my side and I went to Holy Mother’s icon and began to pray. Meanwhile it stopped raining. I was praying, or visit the monastery, and we used to take group pictures in front of the monastery, and many in our group called out for me, for several people only got off the bus just to visit, not to pray, and so when they came out of the monastery they were calling me to take pictures together, and I was so, how should I say it, I just loved to pray and feel the grace of God there, and I couldn’t part with my prayer, to abandon my prayer.
At one point, standing there alone praying in the monastery, the rest of the group were already all out, I thought, “Let's go, they might leave me here," and when I was about to get out a very strange thing happened, I was with my hand on the door handle, I do it every time I pray at a monastery when I start going out I take a last look around, I look at all the icons as if to take my farewell, and only then I get out. That one time I did the same, and when I arrived by the door, in the top of the left corner there was an icon of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I knew that they displayed there the relics of Saint Gregory of Decapolis. And when I got to look at the icon of Our Lord Jesus Christ I felt that from the icon He was looking straight at me. I felt his eyes looking from the icon and then, as if, with my hand on the door knob, as if a wind, I don’t know how to explain it clearer, I felt someone was pushing me back, stopping me from going out. And feeling this I thought about the icon of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and when I got in front of the icon what do you think I saw?! The relics, placed in a black box made of wooden board, painted black. It looked like our wooden pencil boxes in the old times, the top of that box of relics was made of a glass sliding top that you could pull out. It was a piece of glass that you could pull out but only so far, without allowing you to fully slide it out, so as not to get your hands on that hand of Saint Gregory of Decapolis. He held his hand like I hold mine, this very way, the holy relics. Now they set it, I haven’t seen it since I didn’t go back yet, it’s covered in wax, probably to stop further degradation and to preserve it. Well, then it wasn’t preserved in wax. As if I can see it now, even the veins of the saint showed on that hand, like any hand, simply normal, only dried up. And when I saw the holy hand and read there that they were the relics of Saint Gregory of Decapolis, and that very many people were cured after touching it, then I was somewhat so nervous, wanting desperately to touch the saint's hand with my fingers, but, well, the glass wouldn’t allow me, and then I knelt down and started praying and crying, and I so prayed, "Lord Saint Gregory, I think you're near Our Lord Jesus Christ, please ask Him in my sinful name to heal me." In that moment, please believe me, as I was holding my hands on that box of relics, and kneeling down, I got so scared that I even stopped my prayer, because in that moment I felt in my right hand, this is how I can explain to everyone, as if a cold wind went through my bone marrow, as if a cold wind blew through my bone marrow from hand to hand, and from head to toe! When I felt this thing I stopped praying and I stood there, I think a few seconds I just stood there on the spot, and then I got up.
Well, since that moment, I've never had again that weakness in my body.
But another time, I had another day at another monastery at Saint Nicodim of Tismana, I went there to bathe, and for miruire/Holy Unction, that too related to my health, and because of that I have a great trust and always say that God is my doctor and I don’t trust doctors. I don’t go to doctors, only when I’m really forced to. Whatever problems I have, if I don’t feel good, I say it to God and put my trust in Him. God keeps me on this earth as long as He wants, not as long as doctors want. Doctors don’t do a thing for me. I had too many bad experiences like that.
So a wound occurred and I kept on treating it, and I had uterine fibroids and once when I did a Pap smear it turned out number 3, and when my gynecologist told me the results, I ask him, "Sir," scared, "do I have cancer?" So when your Pap smear is 1 or 2, it’s good, it shows that you are healthy, if it’s 3 or over, you have to worry.
And then he answered me, so as not to scare me. He says, "No, no! We have to repeat the tests." I take the test results to a close acquaintance who worked for another doctor, at the Hematology, and I ask her, "Mrs. Doctor, we know each other for so long. Please tell me, I know you don’t want to tell me everything, so as not to scare me. But were you to have these test results yourself, would you get worried or not? But tell me honestly!" And then she says, "Well, of course that I’d worry. It's only normal." I say, "This is all I wanted to know." And then I said I'd never go to the doctor again, and right the next week I had another pilgrimage to the Jiu Valley. And when I got to the Tismana Monastery, reading about the life of Saint Nicodim I find out that he made many miracles. I knelt down and worshiped his relics. Saint Nicodim has his grave in the nave, as they call it, you enter the first part of the church, and there is his grave. Knowing my problem, it was a Sunday, it was the Holy Liturgy/Mass, but I couldn’t care less that it was a crowd of people around me, or that someone would say something or laugh about me, I laid at the foot of the grave, I laid on my belly, I laid on the grave with my belly and I started to cry, to pray to Saint Nicodim to pray, to intercede on my behalf with Jesus Christ. "Saint Nicodim, you see that I have kids, please ask the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of me, a sinful mother, to keep me alive to raise my children."
I sat there and cried and cried and prayed, and after awhile someone taps me on the shoulder. And I lift my eyes, face full of tears, it was a nun and she says, "Get up from the grave, it's not allowed to stay here."
And then I said, "Mother, let me stay just a few more seconds. I have a problem and I know that only here it will get resolved." So she didn’t say anything, let me stay there and pray, and please believe me from then on I haven’t had any health problem. I don’t take any medicine, and I didn’t need to have surgery for the fibroid.
It's been ten years. My Pap smear ever since then it’s 1 and 2, which is... I even went to a gynecologist and when she saw the results and that I have no more gynecological problems, she said, "Ma'am, what world do you live on? Do you live on earth? At your age to have such a splendid Pap smear!"
And this is how the miracles of God repeated.
Another time I went to Dragomirna Monastery in Moldova, and when I was about to get out of the monastery there was an icon of the Holy Mother on a black background. I’ll never forget it. When I’m about to come out, I had such a good feeling seeing all those icons, and so I look about and as if the Holy Mother was watching me with every step, as if I looked at Her, and every time I go there I have this feeling that as if She watches me with her eyes, and often I turn around from the door, I go back to the icon and I pray more and I kneel down before the Holy Mother. Because I feel that the Holy Mother watches me from that icon, follows me with her eyes.
And once, so the icon is up on the wall, I knelt down and I lifted my hands to Her icon and I started to cry, and to pray. Believe me when I prayed I felt my right palm moving. It was like when you get a nervous twitch in your hand, you know, like often you feel a nerve twitch. I felt exactly like that in my palm and I stopped praying and I looked and my hand moved on the icon, I felt a twitch in my palm. I got scared, and said, "Our Holy Mother wants to tell me something, but how should I know what, sinful me?!"
And so out of this love to go, because we are several women who go together regularly to several monasteries, out of this love to go to more monasteries, to get to know all the monasteries in our country, out of this desire is why we started to make these pilgrimages. This is where I find my peace, since I work a lot. Here at the hair salon I have no vacation. I never allow myself a vacation and these few days of retreat at the monastery, these are my holidays. Although it’s hard work, as you’ve seen. I give so much food to people, I often cook at many monasteries. It’s enormously tiresome. I can’t sleep on the nights before the trip. It’s enormously tiresome but I feel that I need to do this and even if I’m more tired, even if I work harder, but surprisingly God gives me so much power and look, since I go to monasteries I don’t call the ambulance anymore. Oh, how many times my clients were left... So, before making these pilgrimages it often happened that my clients were left with the hair dye on, because the ambulance came and took me. It often happened. The poor women love me so much my clients that she rinsed her head herself and her hair was only half dyed and when her husband said, "Woman, go and get your hair dyed properly!" "Until Mrs. Silvia gets better I don’t go anywhere else."
Yes indeed...
Can you tell me again what you said about my curses?
So when Mihai was little, three years old, I got sick. I began to feel weak, to throw up a lot. I lost weight, nothing hurt me, but I lost a lot of weight. Everything I ate I threw up and lost weight. In a year after I knocked on the door of all the clinics in town and consulted so many doctors, but everyone said I had nothing wrong, but I was drying up on my feet, mere bones and skin I was, I went to a priest and he opened the Pravila [which is a Holy Book about the laws of the church that is written in Cyrillic letters. The Holy Gospels will also do if in Cyrillic letters.] which means that you open anywhere the Holy Book and the priest who knows how to interpret it tells your fortune, what is wrong with you and what to do about it. Anyway, I didn’t know about the opening of the Holy Book. I didn’t know that priests can open the Holy Book and can see everything about your life.
He came with a thick book, he said, "Open the book!" I thought, "God, why on earth does this priest make me open this book?" And when I open it, he says, "Why haven’t you told me about your problem? A blonde woman who was a girlfriend of your husband put a curse to separate you two and if you two cannot be separated, then she cursed you to get sick. Either by illness or by divorce, you must be separated."
And my husband gets angry, curses God and says, "I’ll go and I'll burn down her house!" but the priest says," No, no, no! Let me hold a prayer service for your wife to make her healthy again. Let God take care of the one who put the curse. But," he says, "what I can do about her, is to pray that whatever curse she put on you to fall back on her very own head." But I said, "No, Father, my life is in God's hands. And if God wants me to live I’ll live in spite of all her curses, and if God wants me to die and to end my life now, then this is how it shall be. I don’t want that she, if she used devilish means, she did it out of recklessness and didn’t know what she was doing. She doesn’t know God and doesn’t know what God is and what Godly things are and what are ungodly, evil things. Please, let God decide if I live or not."
And with that I left the priest and I went to my priest in the village. I have a very good priest and he knew me since I went to church all the time and he loves me very much. He always asks my parents about me, always, he takes great pleasure when I go to talk to them, he invites me into their house, "Come, Silvia, let’s chat a bit!" and he always asks me in, ever since I became healthy with his help. And I went to the priest and I said crying, "Father, it’s been a year since I’ve kept going to the doctors and nobody finds anything and look what that priest told me upon opening pravila/the Holy Book. And," I say, "I’d like, I trust you, I'd like you to hold prayer service for me." And he prayed over my head he put under his stole. Believe me, when this priest began to pray, I felt in my chest as if someone stabbed a lot of knives in me, painful stabbing, it hurt so much throughout my chest, such stabbing that I wanted to cry and the priest put his hand over my mouth under his stole so as not to cry, not to disturb him in his prayer. I had such terrible chest pains. As long as this prayer went I had these chest pains and when the prayer ended the pain stopped.
He read over me three times that week, so he began on Sunday, Wednesday night, and Friday night. Friday night, Wednesday night nothing happened to me, but on Friday night when he read the third time, when he started to read over me, a vein started, I felt like it said tick-tick-tock like a clock, I felt the veins in my head throbbing. I thought, "God Almighty! I’m having a cerebral hemorrhage /vascular accident in the brain!" All night my veins throbbed just like a ticking clock in my head, and after that I got well.
But that's why I said it's not allowed to put a curse on people, you have to let them be judged by the will of God, since God knows everything and he who puts a curse, God forbid, it might come back and destroy himself. It’s not allowed.
You have to accept any misfortune that happens to you. For the misfortune is also happening with God’s will, perhaps God lets you go through a tough trouble so you return to Him. God wants, because He loves us, this is how He can make us return to Him. You'll never see a happy man praying. A man who has a good marriage, who has a good life, and is in everything doing well, what does he care about God?! But the man who has a problem today, tomorrow another one, who does he go to, if not to the arms of God?
Next time I'd like you to tell me stories about the pilgrimage, happenings that stayed with you, about monks you remember, how you boiled balmoş... Okay? Or how that priest told you to give up hairdressing, or how he criticized you that you dress coquettishly, stuff like that, next time, okay?
But I kindly ask you to please don’t advertise the pilgrimages, that would upset me very much. I told you that a journalist came to interview me and I told her, "Please, don’t write about it." Only to see myself in the newspaper, but nothing from what I actually said. And then she kept on calling and I told her, "Listen, forget about me, please! You guys are jerks! Crooks! Shame on you! I’m struggling to do God's will and all you do is concoct falsehoods about me. Jerks! Forget about me!"
What newspaper was that?
Foaia.
I don’t know, I don’t understand why they don’t write exactly what you tell them, it's so interesting....

My thanks go to Valentin Tarlete who voluteered the transcription of the Romanian language recording. Valentin unfortunately fights cancer and financial hardship. I'd be glad if you donate, so I can help him financially.

 

New York
August 30, 2013

 
 
Well, here you have it: If you’d like to throw a bit of money my way to keep my endeavors going, and also enable me to spread the money to my various causes, witnessing democracy, freedom of speech and faith, and engineering social change thru art being some of them, I’d be grateful.

Portrait of Emmanuel or A Vietnam War Veteran’s Troubles in Louisiana

Baton Rouge, Louisiana
3/8/2001

Emmanuel is my entry into a more down to earth life/experience. Living on campus can be shriveling/debilitating for a writer. After a while you get vomitous with the same faces, same professors, same students, same gossip, same stories about books they’ve read, movies they’ve just watched, and the reviews they agreed with or not. They talk about the representation of the representation of life, while I prefer to write about life.
Emmanuel took me to his tongue-speaking church, to the soup kitchen, to the black district, to his barber and his rapper friends.
At times he does insufferable things. One evening he abducted Alex, my son. I take an art class up to 9 p.m., Tuesday and Thursdays, and I called Alex in the break telling him, “If Emmanuel calls or shows up to take me shopping to Albertson’s, tell him I’d be home by 9:15.”
But when I arrive home as promised and Alex was not at home, neither at John’s, neither at A.J.’s. and they showed up after 30 minutes, saying they went to buy pizza. They didn’t in the end, which is so like Emmanuel, always changing plans, they went to pick up his daughter from her granny and he got yelled at. Well, I didn’t yell at him, I just told him, “That’s enough! I’m Alex’s parent and you had no right to take the child on trips without even leaving a note.” He tried to settle the matter, but I noticed he had a beer bottle in a brown bag, so I said, “Please, that’s enough, get out.”
For a month I didn’t hear from him. I thought he died—he suffers from AIDS, though he said God had cured him, and I was just prejudiced, he said, when I told him that before marrying that Mexican lady from Texas, who is actually not even divorced yet from her homeless junkie, I told him to stop bragging about him getting married when this could kill his future wife. He said he was magically healed and I was prejudiced. “Alright then, did your tests confirm your magically, Godly-sent healing?” He mumbled. “Well, then, if you were magically healed there is no issue, go ahead and marry.” Then he came back later on with another foolery, that he decided to stay a bachelor because it’s a great life to be available for your friends, and his future wife would interfere. He still didn’t take his medicine, God healed him magically. But He didn’t.
Then he called me to tell me he was sorry and he was wrong and he wouldn’t do it again and he misses us—he has but few friends. He says in the black community people run away from him, don’t even want to sit in his car, think the seats might give them AIDS—and he loves us and he was so wrong. So I said, “Won’t you come over and help me out with a homework. I’ll interview you for my Performance Studies class.”
He showed up in ten minutes. He was excited. He shaved his skull and asked me to rub it, because it brings him good luck. I patted him once, and he complained, “Just once?!” “Well, it’s like sandpaper,” I owned up to my reluctance. “I have to put grease,” he said.
So I interviewed him. I changed his name to preserve his privacy.

Ella: I don’t want you to talk as if you’re talking to some board meeting. Just talk the way you usually talk to me.
Emmanuel: Okay, I’m doing it.
So we were, we kept on planning writing something about you, how you came to these cross roads, or how you say, troubles. I think it’s nice to talk about it and then we talk about your life in general if you want. Okay, and then we’ll find a name for you.
Okay, look, my name is Abraham…
[Laughs] No, your name is not Abraham!
Oh, no? Oh, my bad. See now you need to back it up. I’m sorry.
No, that’s alright. What’s your name?
Okay, well, my name, my name, is Abraham.
Pumpersnickel. [Laughs]
My name is Janus Duskorson, darling. And this is, this is my friend. And we, we recorded some stuff that’s, that’s real nice. So we’re just trying to make something that’s real. And right now, I’m going thru this.
I’m trying my mic now, 1, 2, 3….1, 2, 3…
See now I don’t even believe your mic is working.
It does, it does.
I told you don’t even hook that mic up. All I need to do is to sit close to you.
You are right.
All I need to do is sit close to you. Now you need to rewind it to the start.
No, we’ll do it like that. Just a minute, you talk. Slow. Mr. Pumpersnickel. [laughs]
Okay, what?
So, you called. First you called, first you called that you will come, that you would take me to church, to the black church. Is it true or is it not true? Yeah, that we were going to the black church. Then you called me in the morning that you are too tired because somebody tumbled from the bed.
Yes.
Then you called that you will take us to the barbeque. And, that you will call later on and you would pick us up. You didn’t call. Then you disappeared. Then you called, when did you call you’d come in 10 min? You came in an hour. And then you disappeared.
Okay, but do you want me to be real on this tape?
Yeah.
Okay, first of all I’m not even going to say my name. I’m John Pimpernel. And, look, I’m an alcoholic, drug addict, recovering drug addict. I’ve been to Desert Storm. And I’m going thru a lot right now. But, I work a job. I’m a lieutenant.
When did you become an alcoholic?
I’ve been an alcoholic, but I was just... You got alcoholics driving, driving drunk and go to work but… [Clears throat] Excuse me. I have been out of town, riding in my car, no insurance, no registration, nothing like that. It’s illegal. Because I’m in the army. Got Army license plates on my car and all of that. And I just got a big head, thinking I can do that. You know what I’m saying? I’m gonna have my way across this country. Serving this country, and then I volunteered to go to the law. I came back. But I’m not making excuses right now, but from what you were saying. I’m sorry to… I, I never meant to lie. If I told you something, that was my intentions at that time. But once I go and leave, and have another drink and get into something else, you know, I get caught up. You ever heard, you know the definition of the word, the 2 words, caught up? Something caught up? I’m caught up into my atmosphere, and my neighborhood with drugs and alcohol and all that. And I cherish my friendship and relationship with you. I have other friends like you, I work with people like you that’s educated, professional people. But, I’ve been living so wrongly and running from God, not going to church, lying, you know, well, not stealing but just living. Driving illegally, and all of that. And it, it’s finally gotten caught up with me. I got a DWI.
What’s that?
Driving the car while under the influence. Driving while intoxicated. So I got caught, this is my first offence while driving while intoxicated. In other words, look, I’ve lost my life. I’m very grateful that, for God, now that I’m not dead. I’m still alive. I’d lost control, see I drive a 280-ZX sports car and I’ve lost control of both cars about 6 or 7 times and now that is about the 8^th or 9^th, 9^th time, it has caught up with me. But I thank God that I didn’t kill nobody. All I did was tear up my car, but, not kill myself, but tear up the car. I says to my friend, get my car out.
You can’t get your car?
I can’t even get my friend right now. I spent 475 dollars before today and I still haven’t gotten my car out. We gotta wait till Friday and spend about 280 more dollars to get the car out. Then I gotta go to court on the first DWI charge, to get my car out. I mean well, just to get my car.
So after you pay the money, they will give you the car back.
No.
No?
Well, I have a temporary license right now for 30 days. And, right now, this happened on the 18^th. The day of the 22^nd. Right now I’m in the process of getting my car out of the impound. And that costs money. It goes up every day. I called them Saturday, it was 136. And it goes up every day like 11, 13 dollars every day. So, this car costs 2,000 dollars. It’s an ‘83 280-ZX. My sister have been helping me, she gave me 600 dollars today. And I spent like 450 and gave her 150 back. So, I have to go to work in the morning. And Thursday. Wednesday and Thursday. So Friday we gonna try to get the car out. I’m just trying to get the car out and make sure that I don’t lose my job. I don’t have to go a drug center or nothing like that because I’ve been to church. And I got delivered from drug and alcohol abuse thru getting born again in church. That’s how I met this lady that I’m doing the interview now with, so. The devil, I, I’ve just been making some real bad decisions. And, right now I’m in the process of getting my life back straight, with God, I’m gonna get back into church, and leave all that foolishness and the foul, and, you know, living alone, and just try to do right.
What happened to your phone?
Well, first of all, I was in a long distance relationship on my phone. I was howling it. Okay, and one of my friends had gotten into jail. So he got in jail about 7 months. So he was calling me. See, when they call, it’s gotta be to someone’s house that it’s gonna be charged to. So he was trying to get out. He’d been there about 7, 8 months. Now, the first 3 or 4 months we thought that pro’ly he could get out. I was helping him. See, once he called, I could patch him over on the 3-way to his mom, or lawyer, and people like that. But it got out of hand. I wasn’t able to pay the phone. The phone bill got so high. And I wasn’t even able to make the payments.
How much? 1,000?
No, right now the phone is just 4, 400 dollars.
Why don’t his parents help you to pay?
Well, right now they’re dealing with lawyers and stuff, to try to get him out. As a matter of fact, he go to court tomorrow, on the 23^rd.
What did he do?
[Pause] Uh, okay, well, he, he, he had some uh, drug charges. But he was on some other charges that were like uh, credit card fraud and stuff like that. You know, like bad checks, bad checks or credit card fraud. [Coughing] Excuse me.
He stole somebody else’s card and he charged on it, or how?
I don’t know, I don’t know how he got it. But if you get a person’s card like right today and go to the bank, you get the money out. Because by tonight or tomorrow morning they’re going, they’re going to cut it off. They’re gonna say, oh, the card’s lost, they’re going to cut it off.
But this, this dude is a good friend. I’m going to introduce him to you, and he just, he just got caught up too. Now this dude was supposed to be in the NBA right now.
What’s that NBA?
National Basketball Association. Because he can play basketball the best, almost one of the best in this state. Like I want to say his name, but...
But Emmanuel, how happened the accident?
Okay, I was just on the interstate. And I was driving fast and I think somebody came behind me. And I was on the interstate in front of the governor’s mansion and I was attempting to get off of the interstate. And the exit had a curve and the curve was real sharp and I was going so fast. One of my wheels caught the grass and once I hit the brake, the car just slid and, and it, and it fishtailed a lil bit. Now, they got a man, he was a sheriff, he wasn’t directly behind me, he was the second, third person behind me, second person. And he saw my car just fishtailed and went to the side and the grass and he stopped. The other car kept going. And that’s when he stopped, and I was drinking a beer at the time, I threw the beer out. And he called the police. We were in front of the governor’s mansion. Governor Foster, his mansion, downtown by the lake. So once I tried to start the car, it didn’t want to start. So, I just, I just got out of the car. And he was calling the police. I didn’t refuse arrest or nothing, because I was already caught. [Pause] I had been doing that for a while and I thank God to death that that happened because I didn’t kill anybody or hurt anybody because it could have been worse than that. I could have killed myself because I’ve lost, like I told you, I’ve lost control before. I’d lost control with the back beak towards the front and I’m sliding like that.
So what did he do? He called the police?
He, he, he, he, detained me and called the police. And the state troopers came, police came, they checked the back of the car. Put me in the back of another police unit. And they took me to a central booking unit. I stayed there for like 30, 40 minutes. And then after that I did a breathalyzer at that central booking unit. And my alcohol was over the level. And then after that, I had to go to the Terrebonne, Terrebonne Parish Jail, the jail by the Metropolitan Airport.
They took you there by car?
Yeah, in a police car.
And what did you do then?
Well, I had sit up in there and go thru booking and I had to call my lawyer.
You have a lawyer?
Yeah, I have a lawyer.
How do you pay a lawyer? You can’t pay your phone bill!
No, no, no, see this is what the deal is: If you don’t get no trouble, you don’t have to pay a lawyer. But, if, see I was in some trouble before, I was in jail, so I have a lawyer to help me with that. So once you get back in trouble, you have that lawyer and you call him and then you pay him. So while you’re not in trouble, you don’t have to pay your lawyer.
Okay.
So my lawyer, once I got in trouble, I called my lawyer that I was in the jail. He called my sister and left a message on there. And then, she had just got home and she had just heard the message from the lawyer, and then the phone rung. That was me calling her. And I told her, “Girl, look, the car slid out of control, I had a sheriff behind me, and in his unmarked car. They got me on DWI. I’m locked up. And they said, “Okay, it’s gonna cost you 160 dollars to get out. 75 to get out.”’
What’s that? Bail?
On a DWI, see that’s just a regular charge. It ain’t like no armed robbery or nothing like that. So, well my sister, my sister teach school, and she goes to Southern. She’s trying to get her Master’s, just like my other sister.
‘So, now my sister, you go, you gotta go to a bail bond, plus you gotta pay them about 50 or 60 dollars. And then you gotta pay what the jail want you to pay to get me out. Now they told me 75 dollars.’ Now my sister told, she had to pay them 165 dollars to get me out. This happened at 11 o’clock on Friday the 18^th in the morning. I got out at 12.
So you stayed all night there?
No, I got out at 12, 12:15 that night. Friday night, I, I got out. And once I got out, my sister brought me straight home, I went to sleep. Once I woke up the next morning, man, my head was spinning. So I was supposed to go work at 4:30 that Friday, till night. 4:30 that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So, after that Friday, that Saturday morning at 8 o’clock I called my boss, and me and her talked. And she said, ‘No, you made a mistake, blah, blah, blah. We told the cop, DWI.’ She said, ‘I replaced you, filled in your spot for right now.’ Now she had to come into work, she was supposed to be off. I was ready to come, about 4:30 that Saturday evening. So she said, ‘No, I just switched you with the guy who works on days and you was working at nights.’ She said, ‘I had to work today so what I want you to do is come in Sunday morning.’ So I went to sleep, and got ready and went into work Sunday morning I worked all of Sunday, from 4:30 in the morning till 6 o’clock. Now look, the, the paper came in and my name was in the paper. First offence, DWI. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in The Advocate. In print on the Sunday paper.
You were in the Sunday paper?
Right. They put it in the paper, as a matter of fact, they put me on TV too, Channel 9.
Aren’t you famous?!
They put it in the TV. Because a lot of people kill people on DWI. They have a lot of people that get 3 and 4 and sometimes 5 DWI’s. Now, I don’t know how they let them go to 6 DUI’s. But I’m going through so much and this is my first DWI. But once I face the judge, I’ve been to the army, man, Desert Storm and all that. Now once, my judgment, Judge Himel, once I go to my judge, and I talked to him and see him, I’m paying so much stuff right now, just to try to get my car out of there, that it’s overwhelming. I mean, I, I, I have, I ain’t gonna, I ain’t, I’m not going to kill myself, I ain’t gonna commit suicide, I mean, man, this just, man, this ain’t nothing, man, if I lose my job, I have to go 2 days in jail, 48 hours.
Why?
Because I’m submitted guilty. Because they caught me guilty. Because somebody found me guilty, because I had a beer in the car with me.
So. Then you have to miss work.
I, I can’t contest it. No. I hope that the days they assign me to do 48 hours, 2 days, is my off days, if not my boss will have to find somebody to work for me. Because she’s been working with me so far already. Matter of fact a month ago, this same car had broke on me. I had just got fixed it myself. And the car was working and I was on my way to work. The car broke. And I couldn’t even go into work. So, she suspended me for 3 days. I had to work nights, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the same schedule at the same time. So this is what I wanted to say on here.
In my opinion, see, my brother, well, I think somebody got a hex, some type of curse on me. My brother, he got a girlfriend, that just, it is not right. And look, I was in Mexico and in Texas, and my Mexican friend, she got another friend, a Mexican lady that I let pray with me and stuff. Now she put… I’m gonna tell you the truth, I drunk some Holy Water and she put some Holy Water on me and all that, and I don’t know, I feel like the devil’s got such a stronghold, a hand on my life right now. But, I’m going to change my life and start…
I don’t understand. So, what did she do? She put the curse on you?
I don’t know if she put the curse on me or not. Bu, she prayed with me. Now see, if she was right, then everything is fine. If she was a right lady, with God. But she prayed with me, and I, I drunk some Holy Water too. And she put it on my head, she was praying for me. Now she was praying for me in Español, you know, in Spanish.
So you don’t know what she was saying?
[In a lower voice] No, I don’t know what she was saying. But, I, I was trusting my girlfriend, now she was sitting over there telling me nothing. Matter of fact, I’m thinking about calling her right now. Look today is uh, 22^nd, it’s Tuesday the 22^nd, evening, like what time is it? 6 o’clock, 6:30?
6:35.
Yeah, I’m gonna go call her. But see, this is what I’m saying. I don’t care if she did a curse, whatever, or whatnot. But once I give my life to God and Jesus and really commit my life unto doing right, I don’t even have to worry about the devil, or nobody having no curses or whatever on me. But within the past 3 or 4 months, I’ve, I’ve just been going through so much hell.
Like what?
I’ve been in a relationship for 2 years. I’ve been in a relationship with this lady for 2 years. And then my brother, his girlfriend, that situation just compound things. Because he ain’t bringing no money to the house, you know, no food, and things just been going crazy. If, if I have to go to jail, which I don’t want to go to jail.
What did you do in jail?
Oh, I wasn’t in jail for nothing like 13, 12 or 13 hours.
So you were by yourself there?
No, I was in a holding cell.
Alone?
Well, one other guy.
What was he doing?
Oh man, talking stuff, he crying, he was going to the back, you know, murderers and rapists and all that. Like I’m standing up, talking to them, “Let me use the phone.” They said, “Sit down, be quiet.” All that. I’m telling him, “Man, look, I need to call my lawyer, call my sister, because I’m getting out of here.” But this is the thing: I got 30 days to drive, then my license is gonna be suspended. I got 30 days. After that my license is gonna be suspended for 90 days.
Why?
Because on your first DWI, driving while intoxicated, under the influence, that’s how that goes. I need to make sure I get to my job.
But how?
No, see when I’m working on nights, I can catch the bus. While I’m working on days, which I have to go to in the morning, my brother is going to drop me off and I catch the bus home. He’s gonna have to drive me again at like 4:15, 4 o’clock. We gotta get up at like 4 o’clock. We gotta get ourselves up for him to drop me off, and then I come home.
So then that means I get the cardboard boxes I gave you with clothing donations before I move out? I need empty boxes.
I’ve been talking to people about your boxes.
Matter of fact, the boxes you gave me they still at my house. What I’m gonna have to do is call the Salvation Army and, ‘cause I’m not going to Mexico because the Mexico thing is out. I’m sorry about that. I wanted to really take you to that. I was telling people about that. But see…
[Ella sighs]
Now, why you? You know, God is going to work a miracle out for me. You don’t know, you don’t have to go thru what a regular person goes thru for a first DWI, because, see, I have been to the army. I was a lieutenant and served this country. I tell the judge, “Man, you wanna take me to jail? No, you won’t, I was a lieutenant. I work at a plant. I volunteered and served this country and then…” You want me to say this on here?
It’s fine.
“I’m HIV positive. Man, I got AIDS. I got, I got drug, alcohol problems. Little junkie. 18 years old, I’m shooting up cocaine. And, and I’ve been smoking crack, drinking alcohol. I have got many of problems. But I’m not, I’m not going to use that as an excuse. But I just want you to know that before you make a decision.” I’m gonna tell the judge that. “Now I’m a law-abiding citizen. I’m sorry for driving my car with no insurance and I’ve been drinking alcohol and all this here. Your Honor, you know what, I’m sorry, that’s all I can do right. And look, I’m gonna change my life, I’m not gonna be drinking, driving no more. Matter of fact, I’m not gonna touch the alcohol anymore. I wanna change my life. I wanna get back into the, a church. Please, can I keep my job? If, and if you can’t do that, I will go to a long term drug center, like in Texas for 2 years, but I don’t want to go to jail. Please, pardon me and just like I’m asking the Lord, God, to help me. Can you help me and give me some pardon? Have, have pity on me, please.”
And it will work?
And I might go on my knees telling him that. Because in my, from my heart, I mean that. I have, you gonna need help like that. You go to my neighborhood, my community, and from where I come, they say, “You trippin’. You weak.” I don’t get no help back. Now God, bless me back from helping people. But not like when I help you. I mean, God still bless me back. But people like you make sure, like girl, look, these shoes come from you, most of all the clothes I wear, come from you. I tell people that too. They said, “Man, who did that?” Lately I’ve been looking at the walls, looking at that car, that blue car you made pictures sittin’ in it. I’m looking at your pictures of Transylvania, I said, “God! God, I learn from her, that’s my friend. She’s been there for me, I said I’m glad and I will try my best to be there for her.”
And I got black friends, white friends, that haven’t been there for me, like you have. I’m glad we recorded all this. You know what I’m saying?
I just want to record this and just, uh, just let you know and everybody that’s listening here, how much I love this lady. She know about my girlfriend and met some of my friends. And all of that. I’m trying to think of your whole name.
[Ella laughs]
Ella Veres. One time the police stopped us. And look, the police pulled me out of the car and look, put the handcuffs on me, straight. Your son was going to a school right behind where I lived. Downtown, we here in Spanishtown. And the police said, “What’s your friend’s name?” So I told them, I knew the Romanian name, but I said, Ella Veres, her American name. So she, we had just, we knew each other 5, 6 months at that time. But she told the people her Romanian name. Yeah, her foreign name. And I told them Ella Veres, the name that we was familiar with over here. And then the police, he could have punched me. He wanted to beat me up at that time because he thought that… See once they see a black and white person together, they think it’s drugs. So he thought I was lying and all that. But it, see if he had went further, he put the handcuffs on me tight. And if he had of went further than that, I would have put my lawyer on him. Because, if he had impounded that car and took that car and all of that, now, he got, that was a harassment charge.
They were looking for somebody. But we had gone on a public street. He had stopped me and he just pulled me out of the car, just put the handcuffs on me and all of that. Because I was a young black person. See if I was white, if I was Mexican, you know.
Say how it was when we went to the soup kitchen?
Okay, well, the soup kitchen is very funky.
Why did you go? [Laughs]
You see a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts. Now see, I go to the soup kitchen all the time. Because, the reason why I go to the soup kitchen because I’m HIV positive, I wasn’t doing good at the time. I got AIDS. I work a job, yeah, and I was kinda struggling but people didn’t know it. I had a car and all that though, but I still needed somewhere to eat. Wasn’t no food at my house. So that’s why I was going there, eating, and one time I was going into two of them.
Two of them?
Yeah. The Da Vinci, Saint Paul Da Vinci and the Catholic one right up down East Boulevard. Tell them to take double.
Well, how did the soup kitchen look like?
Ah man, tell you what it look like, smell like. One of them was crowded, both of them were crowded. Crowded, smelling like pee, like the garbage.
Really?
Yeah, some of them the food is good at different times. But uh, that’s just like jail. That is not the place you want to be. That’s a terrible place. But for people that’s on the street, homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics, that’s their main stay. They wouldn’t even be able to live if it wasn’t for that, because they need to eat to live. They have to be starving. More people be eating out of the garbage and stuff like that. Which we’ll see more in time.
Why did I go to the soup kitchen?
Well, she went as a guest with me, but she told me, no, I don’t wanna knock these people because these people really need. At this time she really needed it. Because I was the one that took her there. She didn’t really need it like homeless people, but just like me. That was just a place to go eat, at 11:30 through 1 o’clock you just go there to eat. Uh, but I admire that because she said she wasn’t gonna, you got people on the street that need it more.
The one time I pray for those people, because people create the devil. They need to eat to keep their warmth and their health, but they buy the health. And that made me really think a lot when you told me, “No, I’m not gonna knock these people because we can do better.” Now some people can do better. But you’re right, I thought about that a lot. By me being in alcohol and relapsing and stuff on drugs, alcohol, I was really going back there and that’s why I was making the decisions and doing the stuff that I was doing. Sorry about that.
Right now I just thank God that I am still alive. [Clears throat.] I thank God that I am still alive and that I still have my freedom. Not in jail. I have a lot of friends in jail. I have a lot of friends that’s dead. But right now, I just thank God that I’m not. My sister, my little sister, she’s been helping me out a lot. People have been paying money on me. I’m very thankful for the people that have been helping me, especially this lady here. This lady has been helping me a lot. And through my church. [Coughs] I haven’t been going to church, but people at my church, her, by her inviting me to meetings and other people I’ve been meeting thru her. Because where I live, they’re, they’re only just drug people. People just looking out for themselves. People don’t wanna help you. Man, people just, people just…. It’s just dog eat dog. These people just selling drugs, people stealing out of my bank. I lose a lot of stuff. People just stealing and just, man, man, if I had been living with a stronger brother maybe I would be in a different predicament. But my brother, he’s been giving all his money to his girlfriend. And, I’m spending all my money on drugs and alcohol. But at least I’m spending money on myself, well, at least I’m not doing like him, I’m not giving my girl and she riding in a brand new car. At least, if I’m spending my money on drugs and alcohol, at least I’m spending it on me, you know what I’m saying? But that’s still with the wrong outlook, the way to be looking at that.
How was it when you came to visit me at the Photography Department?
Oh, that was very wonderful. I don’t know why I didn’t stop. I, I tried, I said, man I need to stop, then my brother arrived in there and that was a very enlightening experience for me. I had been heard about the black vibes and I got to hear a lot of people speak about their lives and going through college, and everything they had been going through. And about uh, their uh acclimizim, getting culmination of getting their degrees from coming out of college.
We played some basketball over there and it was back then that I lost 3 or 4 games. And see, see I didn’t have management. Team anxiety. See I gotta a claim for Gulf, Gulf War Syndrome.
What’s that?
PTSD. Post, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They said, “Ain’t nothing wrong with your body, but there’s something wrong with your mind.” I, I forget a lot of things, I can’t remember a lot of things, and I’ve been drinking alcohol and drugs, so maybe I need to go to a drug, a long term drug center. I, I may just do that. I may just go to a long-term drug center for like 2 years and then I’m gonna go to Texas. When I go to Texas, if I do make that move, I’m not gonna come back here.
Now let me put this on record. I have a 15-year old daughter who goes to high school. I haven’t been able to pay child support for my daughter. Her grandmother, she only lives with her grandmother. Her mom, they don’t even know what’s going on with me. Because for the past 7 or 8 months I haven’t been able to give the money, like I used to. You know, once I get paid, I give her down some money. It was never on child support I give it to her on my own. But I haven’t been doing nothing for that girl lately. Last time I was on the telephone with her, I said, “Girl you know I love you. I’ve been going through some rough times.” And she said, “Do you really?” And I said, well, I, I, I really didn’t know what to say or how to say it. I say, “What you think? You’re gonna believe what your grandma and your mommy tell you?” I mean, she, she likes to go places and see people that I don’t like her to see. So that’s why I don’t like to come pick her up or nothing like that and take her where she wants to go because, she, she’s living kinda a rough, wild life style herself.
Like what?
Oh, like she, man, this neighborhood, like people that she knew that got killed. They, they be having drive-by shootings and everything up there right behind Bel Air. All, all the drug territory stuff. See, out in California, they got gangs. These people here, they shoot, kill each other over drugs, and it’s just stupid stuff. She, she don’t know, I don’t know. Matter of fact, they don’t even know themselves why they doing it. But see they call themselves gangsta’. If someone just come into their neighborhood and just speak to one of the girls that’s in the neighborhood, they, they feel like that’s confrontational. And really, it’s just stupid. Really, why can’t they all just get along? Matter of fact, first of all, black people they catch flack from man, a young black, if you’re in the States, anywhere in the States, white police stop you, your car can be straight, you don’t even have to be on no alcohol. But, you gonna catch something. Because if that man don’t like blacks, and you a young black, he might beat you up. He gonna tear your car up looking for drugs. He could, they think that every young black sell drugs, and all that. Now, see we make it hard on people that go to college, that sit in law school. People’s that’s in universities, young blacks. I say ‘we’ though, because I’ve been messing up myself. Now see, we make that hard on all them people, see they put all of us in a category, they, they put us in a box, they put blacks in a box. But young, young black males. You are really in a box.
So they can’t get out of the box?
[Pause] No, you can’t. No, no, see just like you looking at me right now. See, I’m young, I’m young and I ain’t not harm. I’m 36 years old. I’m in the box. If, see, check it, you know, these fine cars that these people drive in? If I’m in a Lexus or a Jaguar or something like that, I could go get in the car right now and have on some nice clothes. And be driving down the highway, legibly, legibly, I mean, not speeding, or nothing. And they might stop me, see they going to check. “Where’s your insurance? Registration? Where’s your license?” And then they might search the car. And I haven’t done nothing.
You are a suspect.
Yes, suspect. There you go. Suspect.
The man I’m talking about, his son got killed. Cosby, Bill Cosby. He lives in California. That was a man that was robbing him on the highway. But sometimes, see, see different cases, if it’s black against white or if it’s white against black. Look, I think it was a black man that killed him or whatever. But if the victim would have been white and the suspect would have been black, aw man, he’d have got hung. But, lot of the times, when the victim is black, and the suspect is white, or, even when the suspect is black, man, that thing get throwed out. If you kill a black, sometime they like that. Because you’re eliminating another person that maybe doing some crime, you see, what I’m saying?
Now see, when the other person is white, that did that to them, well, we don’t even hear about them cases. But see, they handle that legibly. They go to court, and take care of them people there, if that’s their first offence. They take care of that the way it should be done. But if the victim or the person that got hurt is white and the suspect is black, man, that black person gonna get hung.
Hung?
And, and sometimes, they got loop holes in the system. You never heard of loop holes? See they got Catch-22 holes. And then they got crooked men. Now I told you, dirtiness and crookedness, prejudice and racism. You’ve got all that going on. You can’t throw that out the window. Now if somebody gonna write, write about that.
Say more about that then.
Well, I saw some award they gave last night, man. They gave one to the poor and this other one that was a civil rights leader. And Carol, Carolyn Kennedy was giving out the award. Everything was about hero, heroism. No, something like that. Cour… it, it was about [Pause] same thing as heroism.
Courage?
Yeah, courage. It was about courage. Matter of fact, it was on Nightline last night. The 21^st, Monday night. And they were saying, what is the definition of courage for you? And some women was giving their definition and description of what they thought courage was about. And I really liked that. But I’m not gonna make no excuses for my life. I done really lay down, this part of my life on this tape. I, I’d just really laid it down on the line and I did that for my friend right here because I really love this lady and her son. And I don’t ever lose that friendship. I’m sorry for being such a [Pause] doufus, but I love and I, that, that’s why I did this.
You want to listen a little bit to see what we did? Should I rewind it a bit?

Emmanuel would like to be a missionary and now is gathering money to go to missionary school that gets more and more expensive each year, he said. He fears his memory is not good enough because in Vietnam the gases ruined his health, he said. He often tells me he would love to go visit my country.

 
 
Well, here you have it: If you’d like to throw a bit of money my way to keep my endeavors going, and also enable me to spread the money to my various causes, witnessing democracy, freedom of speech and faith, and engineering social change thru art being some of them, I’d be grateful.

 

 

New York
August 25, 2013