Of course, I started under my bed. It seemed like the likely place to start. Isn't everything you look for always under your bed? Let's get one thing str8; I am free in my bedroom. Of course, that can mean many things, but in this instance, it means that I have never followed the rules in my bedroom like I have the other rooms of my house. The rest of the house is neat and clean, but in the bedroom there are no rules. NONE. I can do and behave however I want. That might make the boyfriends happy, but when you are looking for one important piece of paper................it can be tedious because free can also mean cluttered..............( For some reason, people assume that gay people are anal about cleanliness. That's just another stereotype. Granted, they might be anal, but it's not always for cleanliness unless we're talking about anal cleanliness, and they are anal about that.)
Socks..Black socks...I pulled out yards and yards of foot long black socks from under my bed because they were part of my work uniform: pressed white shirt, black slacks, black shoes and black socks..The irony of black socks...They reminded me of Jesus...Heck, everything reminded me of Jesus....
But there was a reason for this reminder: When I was growing up, our neighbor Katharine Nightengale, would call Jehovah Witnesses "black socks". She swore all Jehovah Witnesses wore them for religious reasons like Holiness women never cut their hair or wore make-up. Katharine was a stout pear shaped woman of German descent, and she kept her gray hair cropped close to her head. Okay, I'd say it was a lesbian hair-do ( or don't ) now, but Katharine wasn't a lesbian. She'd been washed in the fountain and cleansed by His blood (( I imagined God had a big bottle of Lamb's Blood Concentrate that he added to the wash tub, and then he dipped us in and scrubbed us on a spiritual wash board )).......Katharine was a godly woman..the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31, and she knew the Lord...and she'd make sure you'd meet him too, when you met her....No, she wasn't preachy or anything like that. Erase all images of Carrie Nation with a hatchet beating God's word into your skull..That wasn't her...And she wasn't the Florence Nightengale type either, even though they shared the same last name,..all genteel, quiet and suffering for Jesus...NO, she was a real person from good Oklahoma stock who worked and sweated in the fields right next to her men-folk, and then prepared them an elaborate banquet at lunch time.
And Katharine was resilient. When her husband dropped dead one July afternoon in her front yard, she'd single-handedly dragged his body to the shade, because she didn't want him to look too done at his funeral. Of course, she and I shared that same Okie bluntness. She'd tell you what was up and she'd tell you what was down, because that is what we do in Oklahoma, and she'd tell you how the cow ate the cabbage too, if it was necessary. Katharine was real, and she didn't gossip, and she didn't judge...She just loved like Jesus did...no matter what.
Honestly, I never checked to see whether Katharine's assessment of the feet accessories of Jehovah Witnesses was accurate because I was always too busy shutting the door in their faces..............until I got to college that is. Then I discovered opening the door totally naked usually scared them off..(( and sometimes it paid off if I accidentally opened the door to a pair of neck-tied and dress-shirted Mormon boys....Sometimes they ministered in ways they'd never been taught by their church.............)).. Every time I saw a black sock in a package at Wal-Mart, or in my dresser drawers or...under my bed.... I thought of Katherine Nightengale. Even then, when I was digging all of those black socks from under my bed, I thought of Katharine Nightengale and how much my life had changed since I'd seen her last. I knew that many of the people that I'd attended church with all of my life would have withdrawn from me chanting "unclean, unclean" had I encountered them now, but I knew that Katharine would have given me a big, ol' bear hug and told me that she loved me and that God loved me...............I certainly needed Katharine in my life then, and I missed her Agape. Every time I saw a black sock, I thought of Katharine. Every time I thought of Katharine, I thought of Jesus -- the one I knew, not the one all those churches talked about. The one who had died to give us a grace covenant and had eradicated the curse of the law.
But, I kept digging all the while while I thought about Katharine and black socks, and Jesus and Bart....And I found cellophane wrappers, and Q-tips,and papers..and envelopes....and Bart's yellow bikini briefs that I hadn't seen in at least a week...and finally...at the very back, snugly up against the panelled wall...I saw a piece of notebook paper folded in half. My heart jumped; I knew that was what I had been searching for. I yanked it out from its hiding place under the bed...but a smaller piece of paper fell out of it...I picked it up first.
It was a receipt for my rent for December. But,.........I hadn't paid my rent yet. I couldn't understand, at first, why there would be a receipt for my December rent, so I unfolded the note:
I ran to Arkadelphia to pick up a few things. I'll be back soon to take care of you.
It was my fault you fell and hurt your ankle, so I paid your rent for you for December
so you don't have to worry about bills. I promise to make it up to you. Give me a chance
because I won't let you chase me off.
-- Bart.
So, I picked up a bunch of black socks and sobbed into them. Yeah, I cried. Cried like a baby. Cried like your Mama did at your high school graduation...I just cried... First, I thanked God for sending Bart into my life -- I had to think about the Lord; I was holding black socks. I cried because I'd treated Bart like scum and had played mind games with him when he'd been a good guy all along. I cried because I felt so unworthy that he'd do something so nice for me. AND...I cried because he hadn't signed this first note with "love you"...he hadn't signed it any way at all except for just his name....Maybe..just maybe..I told myself..maybe he was the one..maybe he was the real deal..maybe he was the genuine Gene....maybe he was what I needed.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!" Someone was at the door....I quickly pushed papers, and envelopes, and Q-tips and underwear and black socks under the bed and wiped my face with one last black sock before I threw it under the bed too....I was so glad for Bart to be home. I ran to my circus tent bathroom and did a quick brush and spit.....
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