Bio:  A graduate of Pacific University with a triple major in Art, Creative Writing, and Literature, Jan Nerenberg is currently working on her graduate degree in Creative Writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.  She enjoys writing, family, reading, color and the creation of all thing wonderful. 

"Gentlemen, Please"
By Jan Nerenberg

I love Wednesday.  Fall was just a tingle in the air, a stray leaf clinging, cadmium yellow, a hint of rose madder lacing its edge.  I love color, love writing about color, love being an artist, love fall’s dramatic displays but thus far in my life have tried to stay within the lines.  I’d done well in school.  When I was fourteen, I arranged my high school forecast with a university degree in mind.  My father quietly informed me that it was a waste of money.  Girls didn’t go to college.   Nonetheless, I graduated with honors from Riverside Polytechnic High School, got a job, married, had kids.  I wanted to please, to do what was expected, stay within the lines, but I also wanted to excel, to receive the approval I craved.
For me the boundaries of my life are wrapped up in being wife, mother, nana, student (I’ve finally returned to college), teacher, writer, designer, artist, and Mormon.  Becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was a good fit.  At nineteen, I felt like I was coming home to a place I almost remembered.  I was listened to, encouraged to ask questions, to be more than I was and yet felt fully accepted for just being me.
Each Wednesday I serve a six hour shift in the Portland Oregon temple.  The temple grounds are brilliant with each season’s colors, setting off the white stone of the temple itself.  Calm washes over me as I enter.  I am immediately surrounded by muted colors.  The thin walls glow with autumn’s slanting light, illuminating the striations within the thinly cut marble.  No matter how stressed I get, I know that Wednesday at four I’ll step out of the world by entering the temple.  This Wednesday, I didn’t realize how far that step would take me.  
I arranged my morning to accomplish a few errands on the way to the temple.  Today it included a stop at a local art shop, The Accidental Bookbinder.  I pulled up and parked across the street.  The sky was cerulean, cloudless, September at its best. 
Entering the shop, I walked past Patty’s little white Scottie dog, Lily, who likes to greet all visitors.  I noticed that Patty wasn’t at her usual station in front of the computer.   Patty Grass is one of Oregon’s top bookbinders, perhaps one of the top in the nation.  Knowing my way in and out of her shop, I peeked through the open door at the back.  The bathroom door was ajar.  Where was she?  Odd, I thought.  A tiny prickle of concern formed, which I quickly brushed off.  She must be in the studio in the far back. 
I walked through the storage area to the open work space.  Everything looked normal - tables, chairs, the back glass door closed.  Nothing amiss.  This is more than odd.  Patty would never leave the shop unattended. 
“I’m down here.”  It was a little voice.  I didn’t recognize it.  I saw nothing.  Who was down where?  My eyes searched the cluttered art studio, cupboards, shelves stacked to overflowing.  Then I saw a small tuft of curly grey hair and two blue eyes staring at me from behind the center table.  Still at a loss, I wondered what Patty was doing on the floor behind the table.  Why didn’t she get up?  I walked around and comprehension dawned. 
“Patty, are you okay?” 
“I fell.”
Patty’s girth is not quite as large as her overall artistic talent but it is close.  That combined with a double knee replacement had kept her foundered on the hard cement floor for nearly an hour by the time I entered the store.  I quickly looked around for options to help her rise and found only a towel that she could kneel on.   She had pulled over two short padded ironing boards but had discarded them.  The metal joints of her knee replacements couldn’t survive the pressure of her weight.  
I could feel her discomfort as she avoided eye contact.  All the jokes about “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” ran through my mind.  Except they weren’t funny.  I’d experienced a moment several years ago when I had felt the helplessness of not being able to instantly rise from the floor.  I immediately began a regimen of yoga and core strengthening Pilates.   I hated the feeling of being an upturned turtle even for a moment.  I couldn’t imagine how Patty must feel as she sat there unable to rise. She hesitantly mentioned the possibility of calling either the fire department or an ambulance.
 “What if I go into one of the shops and find a man to help?  I saw several at Pizza Schmizza on the corner when I drove in or I’ll call the fire department. ” 
“No,” her voice was barely audible.  “I don’t want to disturb people when they’re eating.”
She was embarrassed.  I didn’t want to make it worse and told her I would do nothing until she decided what she wanted but that I wasn’t going to just leave her on the floor.   Patty explained that she had tripped over several boxes of paper and had hit her face on some clay bricks she had been holding.  I saw a slight reddening on her face, then scanned the cement beneath and around her.  I’d had some medical training and knew that a loss of consciousness was often accompanied by loss of bladder control.  The floor near her was slightly stained but so was the rest of the studio floor.  The dark mark was not fresh nor damp.   I didn’t believe my friend had blacked out.  She was coherent and seemed to remember everything.  I offered once again to find someone to help her up.
Patty was concerned that the fire department would draw too much attention but finally gave me permission to find assistance in one of the local shops. 
“One won’t be enough,” she suggested and looked away.
Heading out the front door, the street seemed empty of life though the day was still crisp, cool.  I headed to the barber shop.  I knew I’d find men there.  The handle didn’t move.  I then noticed the prominently displayed, “Gone to Lunch” sign.  There was a gift shop a little further on.  I peeked inside the open door, just a woman behind the counter waiting on some women and a slight young man.  No help here.  Okay, I thought, even though she doesn’t want me to disturb someone at lunch, I’ll go to the pizzeria.  I turned back, crossed the alleyway, past the front of Patty’s shop, and looked up. 
The sign for My Place hung in the morning air like an answer to my problem, except that I’d never been in a bar in my life.  To a practicing Mormon, alcohol and cigarettes are to be avoided.  As I’d been baptized just past twenty-one, neither had been an integral part of my life.  I neither smoked nor drank and therefore had no reason to enter a bar.  What would people think of me? actually ran through my mind as I paused outside the darkened doorway.
I’d been raised to mind my own business, never go where you are not wanted, stay in lighted areas where people are around, wash your hands, keep your nose clean.  All these injunctions had been delivered by my parents with the best of intentions and I had tried to adhere to them scrupulously throughout my life.  Yet, these were unusual circumstances.  I’d been to pubs in England but then that is basically the only place to purchase a meal.  I’d been to restaurants with bars attached but I’d never been in a real bar before.  I felt unsure.
The door was open.  I looked inside.  It was dark, forbidding, a cave of testosterone.  I stepped through before I could talk myself out of it, expecting… I’m not sure what.  My peripheral vision picked up some young men sitting at a table, an older man playing a video game.  My eyes were focused on the long wooden bar.  Moisture pricked behind my contact lenses as my eyes swept a row of six or seven biker types, jacket sleeves torn off, ragged beards, tattoos covering their arms. . . “sleeves” I think they call them.  My daughter had told me that one time as I argued against defacing the body, her body.  I stood still.  Now what?  No one turned.  No one noticed that “one of these things doesn’t belong here; one of these things just isn’t the same.”
Jan, I spoke to myself.  Woman down.  I drew breath thinking about my purpose in standing there, ignoring the what-if’s.
“Gentlemen.”  The calm quiet of my voice surprised me.  Was it loud enough?  Yes.  All heads turned and stared at me.  It was only later that I thought about how incongruous the word gentlemen must have sounded to them.  It seemed a better choice at the time than, “Hey, biker-types.”
“Gentlemen, I need some help.  There is a rather large woman who has fallen next door and I need help getting her up.”
I was not prepared for them to rise as one.
“I . . . I only need two,” I said then turned quickly and escaped out the open door back into the sunshine, hoping that they were following yet a little afraid to look.  I didn’t want to go back inside the bar.  A peek behind me revealed three men, two major biker types and one, a younger, sandy haired, biker-in-training.
They followed me through the shop, their dark visages incongruous among the brightly colored papers and paints.  I could feel my nerves straining as the thought of ducklettes travelling in a row behind their leader passed through my thoughts.  I hollered out to Patty that I was back with help, hoping to prepare her for the help I was bringing, all the while babbling to my volunteers that Patty had fallen, had replacement knees, and we really appreciated their willingness to help.   Breathe, Jan, breathe.  Form whole sentences.  I have a tendency to babble when I’m nervous, hoping it hides my discomfort.  My gentlemen didn’t seem to notice.
Two of the larger men approached Patty, positioned themselves one at each side then sliding their arms under hers, tried to lift her.  She rose only inches before they lowered her gently to the floor.  They couldn’t get the leverage they needed.  The youngest nearly vaulted over them.
“I’ll get her from behind.”
It was then that something remarkable happened.  It wasn’t lightning or a voice from above.  It was a quiet realization that I was seeing two images simultaneously, much like the old woman/young woman pen and ink drawing that is used to amaze young art students. 
Here was my friend sitting on a concrete floor unable to rise.   Where before me just moments earlier had stood three who invoked all the things I had been trained to avoid, I saw instead three “gentle” men.  Reaching under Patty’s arms from behind her back, I noticed that the youngest man tried to gain purchase so he could lift.  However, rather than grasping his own hands as he circled Patty chest, he had courteously splayed his hands off to the side, honoring her femininity, not touching her breasts.  Gently, carefully they lifted, restoring her to an upright position.  Had she been their mother, they could not have treated her more respectfully.  Seeing her vertical and stable, they accepted our thanks.  Then they turned as one and walked out of the store, presumably to return to the drinks they had left behind on the bar. 
Though Patty kept insisting that she would be fine, I stayed another hour.  I kept looking at the time, hoping Patty’s business partner, who was now overdue, would arrive.   Finally at Patty’s insistence, I left, heading toward Lake Oswego and my weekly shift at the temple. 
I drove under the same blue sky, the weather warm, just a touch of autumn crisp.  As I parked and walked by the temple flower beds I automatically registered the vivid jewel tones, red, purple, and blue set against a backdrop of greens and flaming autumn leaves.  As I entered the muted color palette of the temple interior I relaxed.  I joked with my co-workers that I had just been to a bar.  No, really.  A real bar.  We laughed and continued in our service for that evening.
My thoughts, however, returned again and again to the three strangers.  Who were these men?  Was it because I addressed them as gentlemen that they were so willing to help? Certainly they had mothers, maybe wives or girlfriends, maybe even daughters.  What had led them to a darkened bar before noon, nursing drinks and perhaps hurts?  Maybe they were just passing through.  Maybe they were regulars.  Maybe they, too, saw the viridian green leaves turn to chrome yellow, vermillion, and magenta.  Maybe they had the souls of poets.