... did Marjean

And took us all in, did Marjean.  Us lost souls, I mean. 

The misfits.  The lepers.  Those of us with withered limbs.   The Samaritan, somehow still hanging on, on an expired student visa.  That thirty-seven-year-old on their fourth post-doc.  That one guy no one wanted to get on the elevator with, because he'd tell you again about his Bible-study group.

The loners.  The misbegotten.  The godforsaken.  The ones where you can see in their eyes  that something's gone wrong.  The cornerstones the builders, and everyone else, rejected.  

That one guy whose tenth year in the PhD, somehow, got turned into a made-up support position.   That probably homeless international student, who, somehow, lived, and slept, and ate, and studied, and shaved, all out of the third cubicle on the left in the second-floor men's room.  Everyone knew it was his, and stayed out of it when he was at class.  Somehow, she really, naturally grooved to us all.

Did what Jesus was supposed to do.  Took us in.

Had us for dinner parties in her small apartment near campus.  East North Central State U – fourth stop down in the state system.  Made us feel like... we were worthy of being had.  Those of us who always said 'Yes' right away, and who would never have anything for her to go to in return.  But Marjean didn't seem to mind.  It was like she couldn't see social value echelons.  She'd just smile a certain way and tell you again, 'They say I collect people'.   Den mother of us goofballs and stumblebums, Marjean.  Would invite you, too, if you were lucky enough to cross her path in the Department at the right time.  Once, twice a year.  Easter.  Thanksgiving.   Some made-up neo-Pagan or something holiday.  No reason at all.  But the best thing that ever happened to any of us during our time there. 

Safe enough little dinner parties.  Not just the comfort of the curry or the baby kale and red lentil lasagna or whatever, but of it just being us perennial screw-ups.  Down at the bottom of the social hierarchy.  Where it's comfortable.   Where smiles freeze when here comes a hard stepper. 

Someone would tell their one amusing story, again, brought out for these occasions if there was a bare excuse and a long-enough pause.  That one thing that happened to them that one time. Like, they tried to eat at a Popeyes when they were at the conference in Saint Louis, but it was closed, or something.  Then would look down again shyly, unable to bear the center of attention for long, perhaps belatedly suspecting some inadequacy in the anecdote.  Hands folded politely in laps. Backs straight.  Watches anxiously checked.   Around ten.

Decades to think back.  That was as close to as you were ever going to get to social validation.  Dinner at Marjean's.  If only you'd known.  The nostalgia for the time when it still felt like something was still ahead of you, and at the same time you were just starting to glimpse the truth.  Back in the day, when everyone still had to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.  And no cell phones or dating apps.  At least, then, there was always a Marjean, gathering the lost souls.     

Her subway stop emerging from darkness at last.  Taking another extra walk around her block, randomly chosen ten-to-twelve-dollar bottle in hand, so as not to show up too early.