26 July 2024
My nineteenth summer was spent, much like the next three summers would be, living and working in Washington, D.C.. The previous summer, I’d begun my sojourn at The George Washington University, as a full merit-scholarship student. That nineteenth summer was uniquely pivotal in steering the direction of my life toward today. I was being led, by the hand of God, to confront the harrowing truth that my survival instincts had prompted me to flee.
That summer, I worked part-time as a waitress at a small family restaurant on 17th and Eye, an eatery that catered to Metro workers, businessmen, secretaries, and lawyers. My essay of Graduation Day, 2024, Glorious Stuff, describes my student-life, albeit without the benevolence of objective distance from that summer.
That benevolent distance took place during the past few years. I’d been actively grieving a particular type of African-American, the descendants of slaves whom I’d known, working at that restaurant. Whether those women represented the Talented Tenth of W.E.B. Dubois, or the noble workers espoused by Booker T. Washington, is immaterial. Those individuals represented themselves. A more resplendent identity cannot be found, anywhere, on this earth, for a human being.
Why was I mourning the demise of those individuals? I’d failed to see, in the present, any human representatives among that “demographic” in America. One week ago, my myopic view got corrected, real fast, to 20/20 vision.
My Dear Husband does not get nearly enough credit on this website for the role he plays, bulldozing through garbage, sieving through sludge, and then translating the verbiage from mumbo-jumbo moron-speak into actual words. My heroic research assistant informs and enlightens me about the most real of Current Events. It was he who alerted me, this summer, to the joyously liberating fact that I need not have been grieving the loss of those proud Americans from that summer.
He pointed me to the video of Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, of Detroit, Michigan. This talented man of abundant faith re-introduced me to that good old and gracious old, old-time religion, through what I can only conclude is his typical electrifying message of fortitude and ferocious belief in the miracles of God.
I wept in watching the loyalty to the truth pouring forth from his mouth. His majestic words were enlivened by the musical delivery of genuine understanding, a powerful force that I’ve long missed, sounding forth from a patriot with “skin color” — with, or without, any color!
And I knew precisely where that man of God-Almighty was going with specifying how he played his part in the miracle that saved President Donald Trump.
I nodded with him, in affirmation of each word. I then decided that I, Debra, humble servant of the Lord, have also played my part in That Miracle . . . because of the prayers that I’ve sent upward, since 2016, and that I still send, each morning and each night, on behalf of that Man of Destiny, his family, and all of the patriots working to save America from the evil perpetrated within and upon our homeland.
This summer I reclaimed the most profound lessons of that summer, of waitressing in D.C. Those lessons were given to me during the month of July. The exact date I do not know.
Time, during this past month, has taken on a certain timelessness, an emotional and mental state that’s always fertile for my creativity. Decades have passed since these scenes of my life took place; and, yet, they seem like yesterday — because honesty and valor between humans are eternal bonds. Those much older women learned from me as much as I learned from them — about love, and faith, and charity.
It was a Friday afternoon. I’d finished my waitress work at the restaurant, sometime in the early afternoon, and had gone to my other part-time job, as a research assistant to a liberal political columnist on Penn Avenue. I was walking to my rented room, after having purchased some toiletry-necessities at the local drugstore, an American company long since gone out-of-business. I turned the corner and was walking down the street, headed toward that crumbling town house on G Street in NW Washington D.C..
A Metro bus pulled to a stop, emitting the smelly exhaust of back-then that is more than likely still the smelly exhaust of here-and-now. Standing toward the end of the line, and waiting to board, was Cathy, the head cook at the restaurant.
Cathy was a short, wiry black woman of small build. Her age was anywhere from 50-90 years. It was impossible for anyone to tell. Her dark skin was flawless. She wore a wig, a rather horrible one. She worked her arms in a semi-circular spinning motion while cooking and frying at the grill with the efficiency of a jazz drummer like Buddy Rich. At the same time, she sang out the names of the orders, and their ingredients. Her pronunciation of “mayo” is a sound I’ll never forget.
At this fateful bus stop, her eyes and mine met at about the same time. In those days, if I didn’t have the courage to confront something, or someone, I didn’t try. I hold the same belief today, and I instilled this advice of caution in each of my two children:
If you attempt to do something before you’re ready to successfully achieve it, you’ll fail. And you will end up in a worse position than you were, when you first started, except you’ll have the experience of failure to accompany you. Getting rid of humiliation and self-doubt takes more time, than does building whatever it is you need in order to aim at your target and realize it.
“I”m not ready yet” is not an excuse for “I’m not gonna do it.” It means, I need more time before I am ready. You have the right to demand that time from someone else, and you have the duty to demand it of yourself.
Clearly, I needed more time on that sweltering day of jungle heat in D.C.!
My target back then was to not have to explain my woeful state in life to anyone. It was a miserably unrealistic goal, replete with fear; but I’d become too hurt, and numbed by pain, to be able to take the emotional risk of being hurt, yet again, by a callous devious coward who feigned sincerity in order to take advantage of my disadvantage.
Cathy stared at me, refusing to let me slip by her, and I’d fully wanted to do so. She looked me up and down, and then she asked, with bewilderment, “Where you goin?”
“Home,” I lied.
She stared me up and down again, quickly re-evaluating this little white girl whom she’d probably thought lived in a nice, affluent house, in a nice, affluent suburb, with a nice, affluent family. I’d been slumming that summer, working as a waitress in the restaurant she completely controlled as the head cook.
“Ain’t you got no fambly?”
Her question was more incredulous than challenging. I understood that evading an answer to this direct question would have been rude.
“No,” I stated.
Those big brown eyes of hers welled up, and I had to look away, because I wasn’t going to cry in front of this woman. Mercifully, the bus line moved enough ahead to force her to board that marvel of public transit.
She kept looking back at me, though. I felt I couldn’t walk away until the bus drove off. Even then, Cathy stared at me through the window. Only when the fuming diesel-driven machine was out of my sight did I feel free to be on my way, to a rented room that assuredly was not home.
On Monday, I showed up for my waitress work at 11 a.m. The ambiance among those black waitresses had changed, markedly. Cathy was setting up the grill, but she was quiet. Ruth, her assistant cook, or co-cook, stood silently by her, as she always did. In Western parlance, they were quite a pair to draw to.
Ruth was really the boss of the outfit, the one in charge of the waitresses, the orders, who got the orders, and when, and sometimes even IF that order got to the waitress.
There were three waitresses that Ruth kept in line; that job alone was more than full-time. One of the gals was young, tall, thin, and light-skinned, what I would later learn was termed “high yaller.” She was nearly always strung out on marijuana. An obvious drug addict, she’d gotten off of cocaine, but was rarely reliable. I’d been called in to fill her slot on several Saturdays.
Another waitress was of average height, slightly plump, friendly, lovely, but nearly silent. She spent her time at work, humming as she thought of her man. It was a devotion to which I aspired, actually having a man to think about, and hum, though not in the same groove. For “Annie,” her man was subject to change, unexpectedly. The third waitress did not speak English very well; she was given a nickname by her cohorts, indicating her part-East-Asian ancestry. I didn’t use the nickname, but, basically I didn’t speak to this woman. She responded only to commands coming from Ruth.
Ruth was a queen. She truly was an Amazon, the warrior woman of Greek mythology. She was a single mom, working while her only child, a son, was in prison. She was attractive, wore a chignon, and carried herself in an august manner she’d probably mastered during girlhood. She hovered over and protected Cathy with motions and motives that I might have envied. Several times, she’d shoved me against a counter because I’d not followed the proper procedure that she’d implemented in this restaurant for the pick-up of orders. I would have appreciated being told what was the SOP I’d violated, but, to me, Ruth spoke only with her eyes.
And those eyes were small and dark and fierce. I was not, however, intimidated by her hostile glare. That fearless reaction of mine had provoked her rude shove to my rather small body. I nonetheless kept my silence, and went about my business, which was the job of serving the customers.
That Monday morning, Ruth looked at me calmly, without animosity. Cathy walked over to me, and led me to the pan of bread pudding that she’d made. If there was one fact that had become known to Cathy about Debra, it was that I loved her bread pudding. Most of the time, there was none of it left by the end of my shift. That day, she informed all of the waitresses, including Ruth, that this piece of bread pudding belonged to Miss Debra. Don’t nobody touch it.
The lunch rush was soon enough on, and, much to my surprise, I was being given my orders on time, almost ahead of time, and, a couple of times, first in-line. Ruth eyed me, with renewed suspicion, as I performed my usual routine work. At the end of the rush hour, she set that piece of bread pudding with a fork and a glass of milk on the back counter, where I usually ate a quick bite before changing clothes in the kitchen bathroom and rushing off to my journalism-job.
She stood there, watching me eat, her eyes hot with the accusation of insult:
We’re being nice to you, and you don’t show any appreciation???!!
I explained to this woman that it’s all too much, too fast. I don’t know how to respond to sudden . . .
The word was “kindness”, and I had to lower my face to hide my tears. I certainly wasn’t going to let this woman see me cry. Once I’d composed myself, I looked up. There were tears in her eyes.
She’d realized that I was a motherless child. Debra, little blonde girl who was polite and patient, also possessed the virtue of dignity. I was not aware on that day, but I became very aware during my years among the self-entitled brats of California, that if there is one supreme virtue among people of “that culture”, it’s dignity.
Thank you, Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, for guiding me from that summer to this summer, to every summer of love, faith, charity, and, yes, dignity.