Making the Galaxy Great

Jason had not forgotten about his ‘special assignment’ from Ambling. When he finally got around to calling the director of the Oasis Rescue Mission, he got a surprise. Her name was Grace Hauck.

“As in, the Hauck family that owns Schnitzelberg Brewing?” he asked her.

“Afraid so,” she replied. “Frederick Hauck was my dad and Henry Hauck is my uncle.”

So that explained why a beer company was making a large, public donation to the women and children’s shelter. Jason told her why he was calling.

“Yeah, I heard a rumbling about this from my uncle. I think he’s feeling old and guilty since my dad died and Uncle Henry doesn’t have any children of his own.”

“So I think the idea,” said Jason, “is for me to present you with one of those oversized checks so we can have a photo taken. We get some PR, you get some money. I know we’re not exactly the kind of sponsor you want—”

“We’ll take all the money we can get,” said Grace. “If the Ku Klux Klan wants to give us money, we’ll take it. I’d rather do some good with their money than let them spend it on more robes and ropes.”

Jason was pleasantly startled by her bluntness and pragmatism. They arranged for him to present her with the check at 2:00 on Friday afternoon — a chance for him to get out of the office and start the weekend early. So after a long lunch on Friday afternoon, Jason parked his car on a sketchy street in a sketchy neighborhood of old, narrow shotgun houses, liquor stores and empty lots.

The Oasis Rescue Mission lived in an old church building on the corner of one of these blocks. As he rounded the corner, Jason walked quickly and tried to look confident. He was carrying the ridiculously large check under his arm, advertising to anyone who cared to look that he was carrying a large sum of money. Outside the huge oak front doors of the former church, three women stood smoking and chatting, while another sat on a metal bench holding a thin plastic leash attached to a small dog. The women all wore similar expressions of distant, lethargic antipathy.

Jason slowed his stride. He was male; how would he be greeted?

Sure enough, he was challenged almost immediately.

“Hey,” said one of the women, pale and thin and wearing a sleeveless T-shirt over baggy sweats. “What you doing here?”

Then she took a closer look at the oversized foam board check Jason was carrying, and her face was transformed. Her eyes widened and her lip uncurled. “Dude, is that real money?”

“Yo, Twiggy, leave that gentleman alone,” said another woman. Twiggy hustled away.

“What do you need, fella?” asked the second woman. “You don’t look like nobody’s boyfriend. But if you are, you ain’t coming in.”

Jason told her he needed to see the director. She nodded and pointed inside the building. “Mmm hmm. She’s in there somewhere. And you better be telling the truth.”

Before he reached the front door, Jason was cut off by the dog, which was tan and white with a thick chest and oversized ears — possibly some type of Corgi mix. He stopped as the dog sniffed his pant leg then stared up at him, its ears standing at attention. Jason slowly lowered himself into a crouch.

“Watch out. That dog is wild,” one of the women warned.

Jason held out his hand. “Hey,” he said softly. “You’re just checking on strangers, aren’t you? Just doing your job, right?”

For a second, the dog showed its teeth and seemed inclined to use them, but as Jason continued to talk to it, the little canine relaxed its muzzle and leaned forward to sniff Jason’s hand. After a few seconds of sniffing, Jason eased his hand forward and lightly brushed its chin with his fingertips.

“Check it out. She likes him. She don’t usually like men.”

“Her name is Prince,” said the owner proudly.

Jason’s eyebrows arched upward. “Interesting name.”

After a bit more time communing with the female dog named Prince, Jason moved on and opened one of the large wooden doors — the same doors that greeted parishioners for decades before the neighborhood had emptied out so much that even the church abandoned it.

Inside, the old vestibule had been cut off from what had once been the sanctuary by plexiglass walls, with a plexiglass door on one side. It all looked as if it had been screwed together in an afternoon by a handyman (or just as likely, a handywoman).

Beyond the plexiglass barrier, all of the pews had been removed and makeshift sheetrock walls had been installed along both sides of the sanctuary, extending only about a third of the way up toward the arched Gothic ceiling. A series of doors on each wall indicated that there must be several rooms behind them. One of the doors had a poster board sign that read: CLINIC.

In the center of the sanctuary, a number of women sat at folding tables, talking and drinking from paper cups. At the far end, flanked by stained glass, a rather striking depiction of Jesus on the cross still hung on the wall above the altar, which was now obscured by a series of fabric panels, like the ones used to divide cubicles at Jason’s office. Attached to the top of one of the panels was a plastic sign that bore the word OASIS! and a drawing that was probably intended to represent palm trees around a small pool of water. In front of that wall, a large flat-screen television sat on a table, and four preschool-aged children were watching cartoons.

Jason pressed a button on the plexiglass door. Momentarily, a short woman with an atrocious dark red wig and a t-shirt with the slogan Because We Care appeared from one of the cubicles under the altar, and race-walked toward the plexiglass. She opened the door and, pointing at the bundle under his arm, said cheerfully: “You should get smaller checks, so they fit in your wallet.” Then she giggled shrilly.

Jason, still looking around to take in the entire scene, tried to pretend he hadn’t heard her. “Hi there. I’m looking for Grace.”

“Well you know, this isn’t actually a church any more,” the woman responded.

“What? Oh, right, I know. I mean Grace Hauck.”

The woman giggled to herself again. “I knew what you meant.”

“Ah, good one.” Jason forced a smile while cringing inside.

God help me.

“I think Miss Grace is expecting you,” said the receptionist. She typed in a code and re-opened the plexiglass door and they both entered the sanctuary. She left Jason and disappeared into her cubicle. While he waited, Jason felt the stares from the women sitting at the tables around him. He felt embarrassed for his Y chromosome.

Luckily, it was only a minute or so before the receptionist returned with Grace, a middle-aged woman with long, unkempt and mostly gray hair cascading over a loose-fitting smock. Clearly she hadn’t dressed up for her photo op. She held out a hand to Jason.

“You must be Mr. Fleming. So where do you want to do this?” she said. Efficient, business-like — nothing like her appearance.

Jason pointed toward the wall that bore the name of the mission along with the questionable artwork. “I think that would be best,” he said. Then he turned to the comedienne/receptionist. “Do you mind taking the photo?”

But before he could hand her the camera, a bell sounded, and the receptionist hustled back toward the front doors. Jason was relieved when he saw Brian Furrow from News 4, accompanied by a camera operator.

Brian, tall and mid-thirties, wore a navy blazer and tie over a pair of shorts and sneakers. He smiled at Jason as he walked in with the receptionist. “Slow news day,” he said. “Not even a good assault or school secretary embezzlement. So I thought I’d come do a quickie of your check presentation.”

Brian’s camera operator filmed Jason smiling and shaking hands with Grace Hauck, while holding the foam board check for $50,000 between them. Brian got quick, one-take comments from both Grace and Jason, and even took a photo with Jason’s camera so Jason had something Sandy Carlyle could post on Schnitzelberg’s website and social media. When Grace was asked what the mission intended to use the money for, she replied that they were enhancing security and that their roof needed replacing.

After the filming, Grace invited them for a quick tour of the facility, which Jason felt obligated to accept, though Brian declined, pleading deadlines. So Grace and Jason strolled down the right side of the sanctuary, and Grace explained that the makeshift rooms on that side were reserved for women with children. The right side was for women who were on their own.

“We have room for about 40 women with children, and right now we have, I think, 67,” she said. “So some of them are staying on the other side, and we moved some of the women without kids up to the balcony.”

“Ah,” said Jason. “No kids on the balcony. Not safe.”

Grace nodded. “You sound like a parent.”

Jason asked about the room marked CLINIC, and Grace told him that they handled everything from kids with colds to women with addiction issues. “Right now we have two docs and a nurse practitioner who take turns helping out on their days off. Eventually they all get burned out and I have to scramble to find replacements. I’m trying to work out something with the university med school, but . . .” she shrugged.

The screech of badly maintained hydraulic brakes out on the street announced the arrival of a school bus, and moments later a handful of boys and girls, ranging from kindergarten age to early teens, entered the building.

“They don’t all go to the same school, do they?” Jason asked.

Grace shook her head. “No, we try to keep them in the schools they were attending before they . . . joined us. They all go to a central hub where a bus picks them up and brings them here.”

Thoroughly depressed, Jason was about to head for the front door when he noticed a group of women walking along the aisle on the childless side of the sanctuary. One of them was smaller than the others and wore a navy hoodie. She turned her head slightly and glanced at him, just for a second. He blinked and squinted his eyes. She looked vaguely non-binary. Or rather, Yrrean.

He called out, and the Yrrean instantly disappeared through a corner door near the altar.