Harry and His Friends

"Do you have a seat?” asks the usher.
“Well, actually I was looking for someone who looked all alone to sit next to them,” I reply, feeling virtuous. Also, because for the month or so that I’ve been attending this church, many times I have sat with empty seats beside me feeling conspicuously alone. Previously that would have provoked a complaint that the church is unfriendly, except that a couple of Sundays ago – when I was still trying to get used to the fact that I was once again surrounded by Christians as an unfortunate by-product of having had a real and powerful experience of God in this place – a geeky looking man started to talk to me and I ignored him completely. “I don’t want you,” I said angrily in my head, “I want God. So leave me alone!” When visitors raised their hands, of course, he was one of them. And when the sermon was about being a church that was generous with our smiles as well as our money, the message finally sank in: I am the church. The fact that I’m sitting in these pews means to this man beside me and anyone else who walks in here, I am the church. If I want a friendly church, I have to be friendly. If I want a church that sees the people who are alone and sits next to them, it starts with me.

I am not feeling nearly so virtuous when I find myself placed next to an old lady in a wheelchair sitting alone in the back row. “The usher says you speak English and Spanish,” I try gamely. She answers something in a feeble old lady voice. “Are you Latina?” I ask. She says something and looks to me for a response. Heck, I don’t understand a word she’s saying. “Okay,” I improvise, tucking the blanket closer around her, although for all I know she may have asked me to take it off.
“Do you have any money?” I understood that. Please don’t tell me this sweet old lady it hitting me up for cash!
“Only for the collection,” I say with forced joviality.
“I wish I could help you dear, but I don’t have any money.” The poor old soul is confused. Or perhaps not as confused as I think. I am currently living on a loan from my mother and I really don’t have any money. Maybe she’s perfectly lucid and as frustrated as I am at our inability to communicate. We both resume watching the preparations at the front of the church for a service that is taking WAY too long to start. Groups of attractive young people gather and re-form. There is much greeting and smiling and tossing of long blond hair. Why are so many of the women blond? For that matter, why does the whole church look like they spent last night at the Emmy awards?
I hear the reedy voice: “Where are you from?”
“England.” No recognition. “United Kingdom? Great Britain.” Now she looks confused. Can a person be from three places?
“You speak very good English,” she says, kindly.

A wheelchair is parked on the other side of the old lady. A completely bald man sits hunched over, his head twisted in my direction. He wears thick glasses and has slack, rubbery lips, but somehow this endears me to him. One hand rests on his bald pate, moving slowly back and forth as if asking himself how he came to be in this wheelchair, unable to raise his head.
“Hello,” says the abuela.
“Hello,” he manages through thick lips, appearing to smile. I like it that the old lady has given up on me and is concentrating on welcoming her peers.

Finally, the lights dim and the music starts. Now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful that there are so many talented musicians in the church, that gifted technicians work to produce lighting and sound worthy of a professional concert. The kids (that is, anyone under forty) love it, and I can’t wait for the day my own son throws off his agnosticism and is blown away by rap music in church. But I have to say I find it hard to worship God when I can’t hear the sound of my own singing, when I don’t know the songs, when, just as I think I’ve got it down, there is a guitar solo and I’m left mouthing words when no one else is. I hate clapping along – it makes me feel like I’m at a children’s party watching a tired entertainer bend balloons, or on a cruise ship listening to an out-of-tune dance band and trying not to notice the people leaning over the side. So there I am, feeling all bristly and superior, when I notice that the guy in the wheelchair has twisted his head some more to see the monitor and is singing along to the rap music and, with just about the only mobility afforded to him, is clapping his hands.

I remember last Sunday when I was going through a similar oh-no-here-comes-the-loud-music moment, watching another old guy grab onto the back of the chair in front of him and pull himself up. The liver spots on his bald head reminded me of my granddad. He turned to me, clapping his bony hands, with a big smile on his face that said, “Come on; let’s worship God!” I bet the old guy in the wheelchair today would love to spring to his feet if he could. I bet the old lady would love to clap her hands if they didn’t tremble ineffectually under her blanket. How can I not stand up and lift my hands to God, if this dear old man makes such effort to follow the words of songs that are as new to him as they are to me? I’m sure we’d both prefer Amazing Grace, but there you are. And when the music veers off into the inevitable solo, the man in the wheelchair continues to clap, undeterred.

A helper comes to retrieve the wheelchairs at the end of service. He squeezes the old guy's shoulders, hard, the bent body jerking into an upright position under the attack. The helper is behind him and can’t see the old guy’s face. To me, it looks as if he’s in pain – the rictus of his mouth certainly doesn’t suggest he’s enjoying it.
“What is this gentleman’s name?” I ask the helper.
“Harry.”
“Harry,” I say, bending down beside him, “I just want to tell you how much you ministered to me. Clapping along,” I add, feebly. What I want to say is, How much you ministered to me by praising God when you’re stuck in that body, not able to do anything for yourself. He takes a while to process why his clapping would cause this tearful middle-aged woman to crouch at his side. He grasps my hand more tightly and pulls me closer into the collapse of head and shoulders.
“I was a Baptist,” he’s saying, “but forty years ago when I came to a Pentecostal church I came alive.” Indeed you did, Harry. More alive than me, that’s for sure.
An usher offers the old lady a lollipop. She looks at him suspiciously.
“I don’t have any money.”


Copyright © 2008 Louise Godbold

Passing the Sniff Test

Her email address reads: Penelope Davis, Ph.D. This may be the first clue that my future boss may be a little hung up on appearances. Other information was not forthcoming, despite a series of increasingly urgent emails. This is how I end up sitting in Starbucks one hour before the client interview, during which I am to represent myself as the Project Manager for a project about which I am remarkably vague. But $40K a year is no small incentive, especially as I’m seriously unemployed right now.

Twenty minutes later, a tall white woman comes through the doors talking animatedly into her Blackberry. She stops two feet away and despite my smile, continues to stare into the middle-distance: “No, just include it in the proposal with the other… I know, but we have to get this out today. I’ll see when I’m back in the office… Okay, bye.”
“Penelope?” She turns to me blankly, as if surprised that the only other white woman in the place should turn out to be the Program Evaluator from England.
“I need to use the restroom,” she says, pivoting on her four-inch heels.

I have to admit to feeling a little pissed off. Terribly busy people think that being terribly busy is a legitimate excuse for inconveniencing other people who obviously have less busy and therefore less-important lives.

A flash of shiny magenta blouse crosses my vision as Penelope plops down in the armchair opposite. She pauses, looking quizzically at my face, then proffers her hand. “Penelope Davis. Pleased to meet you.” I shake the outstretched hand and then wait as she rearranges her Jimmy Choo purse on the table in front of us. I know it’s Jimmy Choo because each corner has a large, shiny gold hinge emblazoned with “Jimmy Choo.” I guess the ostentatious bag serves the same purpose as the email address – lest we forget.

There is now only twenty minutes before we have to leave for the client’s office, so I start straight in with my questions: Why no parent measures?
“Well, the program is not for high-risk youth, so we wouldn’t expect behavior changes,” she answers, with the tight smile of someone who’s just been asked to deposit money into an account in Nigeria. “It’s what we call high cost, low yield data.”
“But as a parent,” I go on, refusing to be intimidated by the academic bling, “I know that any changes in my child, I’m going to notice them first. Besides, with only the staff and students as data sources, don’t we need to triangulate?” Hah! Stuff that in your Jimmy Choo!

Penelope puts her arms into her black jacket – a signal we need to leave? Preparation for a showdown? Does she have the tasseled mortarboard to match? She appears to be wearing the star from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree on her jacket, or maybe it’s a hi-tech device that is even now broadcasting live to the American Evaluation Association, offering further evidence of my attempts to bring the profession into disrepute. “We’ll also be using a standard assessment tool,” she fixes me with that same cold smile, tapping her finger on the proposal document. “We have 17 research assistants we can send out to the sites.”

Seventeen research assistants? This is definitely the time to ask. “Your partner said forty thousand dollars when he first spoke to me. Am I still in the budget for the same amount?”
“Ah, yes. That’s something else we changed. You’re now in for thirty thousand.” She registers the flinch. “If that’s okay.”

But we don’t really have time to discuss whether I can coordinate this project (including the legion of research assistants) on only five hours a week, because it’s time to set off for the interview. Circling the client’s building, I wish I had paid more attention to the parking instructions. The entrance to the underground parking proclaims, “Only for the clients of the Curacao supermarket.”

I am expelled from the elevator directly into the office, in full view of the people assembled in the conference room to my right. Dr. Davis turns her head without disturbing a single perfect strand of her orange Cleopatra haircut. “I thought I was in the wrong place!” I exclaim, dumping my pile of papers on the table, “Solamente para los clientes de Curacao!” A handsome Latino man at the table looks up and smiles when he hears the Spanish. Dr. Davis seems to be suffering from indigestion. Recovering, she launches into the pitch:

“We have conducted many multi-site evaluations, including a National Youth Survey,” she says, lowering her lashes in false modesty, “and can help you achieve model program status.” Hang on! We don’t know this program warrants model program status. In fact, we know nothing at all beyond the opinion of a District Supervisor, who told Penelope the program is "good." The previous evaluation only proved that while the kids remained in the program they were kept off the streets. Amusement arcades do the same thing. But after being asked exactly how many after-school programs she has evaluated, Penelope turns to me.

“People work in social programs because they believe with all their heart and soul they are making a difference… Well, it’s certainly not for the pay!” This raises a laugh. “So I ask the staff what tells them there is a change – even if it’s a smile on a kid’s face – and help them to measure that change. I don’t believe in the approach of some academics who come in with a whole bunch of assumptions and then try to impose their framework of outcomes and measures to prove some theory, and completely miss what’s really going on. I’m not interested in publishing, I’m interested in making programs the best they can be.” The Latino man, who turns out to be the Program Director, nods his head. Penelope has become red in the face.

“Of course, we’re not going to make Louise do anything she doesn’t like,” her smile oozes like mango sorbet around the room – sweet and chilly, “That’s why we’re here! I’m not an academic, I’m a clinical psychologist, so I don’t need to publish, but,” she continues in a hushed, serious tone, “to become a model program the evaluation has to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and” she looks hard at me “we have to use standard instruments in order to pass the sniff test.” Which I apparently don’t.

I spend the rest of the hour kicking myself for pitching the project all wrong, then resenting the fact that Mrs. Choo had not taken the time to prepare me. When it’s all over, the Program Director and I drop into easy conversation on our way to the door. “So you work in South Gate and Huntington Park? They’re my old stomping grounds,” I tell him.
“Yeah, we’re doing some really exciting work, organizing the parents and families.” I look at him, astounded.
“Why didn’t we talk about this during the meeting?”
“Oh that? That was just data,” he says, confirming that there are things Dr. Davis and her standard instruments will never find out.

As the elevator door closes over Penelope’s face (which still maintains the professional expressionlessness of the clinical psychologist, but only just), I am left wondering if I could ever have worked under this Over Achiever who is philosophically at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to evaluation… and fashion accessories. Then I wonder if I’m not interested in publishing after all: Godbold, L. A. (July 2008). Passing the Sniff Test: A Case Study on How Not to Win Evaluation Contracts.

Top 10 Favorite Signs In My Neighborhood

1) Served in a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant: Homlet. If you retranslated it back to French, would it mean "little man?" 2) Coming onto my son's school campus: Drive slow. I wonder if the class on adjectives and adverbs is next semester? 3) Painted on the Amtrak platform: Stand in back of the line. What happened to the perfectly good word "behind?" Was it considered too rude? 4) The name of an Armenian coffee shop: Ancient Grounds. How appetizing! 5) The name of a Cambodian bar: Little Joy. A place to cry in your beer. 6) Elvis dress shop. Elvi really should punctuate or she'll perpetuate the myth he's still alive. 7) Outside La Parrilla restaurant: A real Mexican kitchen. That has many scratching their head, but it's the literal translation of the French word "cuisine." 8) On the left rear bumper of a laborer's truck: Passing side. On the right: Suiside. 9) Legal Bookstore. What would the illegal one sell? 10) Outside the library: Literacy class ->

Well Woman

"What drugs you take?"
"Pardon?"
"What drugs. You take."
I am being cross-examined by the Kaiser nursing assistant who somehow skipped the role-play class where you learn to be empathetic to your client's need for privacy and tact.
“Smoke?”
“No.”
“Drink?”
“Yes.” I allow myself a little defiance, despite the “JESUS LOVES ME” in chunky letters around her neck.
“One drink a day,” she concludes and makes a note. How did she arrive at that? Is it because my hands are not shaking and my lipstick smudged? For all she knows, I’m hiding empty bottles down the back of the sofa.
"Sex?"
"Er, female?"
"No. You have sex?"
"Every now and then."
"Men?"
No, sheep and pigs, is what I want to say, but I don't think my humor will translate well into Armenian.
"You put on gown, opening to the front." With that she disappears and I am left to wonder how to fasten the gown without strangling myself or cross-hatching my breasts whilst doing nothing to cover them.

The well-woman check-up is something I dread. It's not the physical discomfort (although I'm not a fan of the part when they sandwich your breast between two waffle irons), but the loss of dignity. And no one knows how to do that better than Kaiser.

"Next!" It's time for my mammogram. Holding the sides of my gown across my chest, I walk jauntily into the room. Got to put on a brave front, so to speak. The technician looks at my chest from under lowered brows, then without a word snaps the current plastic tray out of the machine to replace it with something that looks like it was made to hold earrings. Okay, I know I'm not well-endowed, but no need to make a big production out of it.

Back in the waiting room, I bond with the other señoras clutching gowns. "Ella esta muy mala," glares one of them at the technician who has just emerged from the room. The technician glares back. I leave as the señora is ushered away, grateful that I will be spared her screams.