Because the Starbucks cup told me to, I had a conversation with a stranger

“Now what’s a young man doing sitting in a hospital lobby with his laptop?”

It was the voice of a woman whose husband killed himself. Her grandson is nearly my age. She lost her Jewish faith from the Holocaust and explains to me why.

“It’s much easier to get a group together to hate something than it is to…”

I realize she speaks with wisdom and experience. She was eleven when the members of the White Rose were beheaded, two years older than when I would stare in awe at the Persian Gulf map on the TV screen. The voice of Bill Jennings may remain engraved in my memory the way I imagine a speech of Hitler could echo across these many generations in the minds of those like her.

She had two strokes, her son thinks he has Asperger’s syndrome and she’s probably right, “We’re all inherently flawed.”

Hair like hers on a mannequin is as well groomed, auburn with blond streaks. Ears and fingers adorned with bulky gold, the fur coat as much as she a heirloom.

“The Catholic Church is an abomination,” she says, although I’m not sure if in her profession as a short story writer her license with fiction excuses such outbursts. I’ve just told her that I’m a Catholic, What am I doing in the hospital lobby talking with her?

“I am Jewish.”

Yes, with pink lipstick and a son who lacks social intelligence. He’s a surgeon.

“Christ was a typical Jewish boy. A revel. I’ve known lots of revels in my day.”

Unfortunately she had a black thumb. Her son did not; and she was so proud of him for growing pot. Until her friend was over and they discovered that the boy was growing pot. Then she shredded her fingers at me so that I could see what she did, to the leaves.

“Let’s say we don’t want to fight—what about the Russians?”

“Paul perverted everything.” Yes we’re all inherently flawed. “And the Catholic Church is so hideously rich.” What am I doing in the lobby, I wonder. She could be right: “Unless there’s strong government supervision…Can’t ever change.”

“What about the Russians…so we get belligerent back. Look what’s going on with Wikileaks. That’s why I’m an atheist."

Yes and her son does facial trauma; only five hundred and fifty five optomologists have the training to remove cancer from the orbit of the eye. He does pro bono, cataracts in Honduras, children and old people. They do one eye per person but they stay ten days. He and the others do one eye because otherwise they would be functionally blind. Yes he does pro bono with two inches of dirt on the floor. He does facial trauma for motor cycle accidents, sows eyelids back on, noses too. And by the time they finish with two inches of dirt on the floor, it’s a prayer.

“Christ was a typical Jewish youth, a revel, like the blacks joining the civil rights marches.” And I agree.