The Unexpected and Fictional Career Change of Jim Kearns
After the Incident: Chapter Ten
The next morning, supremely stiff from hand-bombing the rest of my supplies to the third floor or various out-of-the-way corners of the house the previous evening, I spent forty minutes or so on the phone looking for a contractor to install the skylight. With Maddy’s blessing, too, after I’d got her to try lifting the thing with me.
I hadn’t expected same-day service, but an hour after my last phone call, two wide-bodied, middle-aged men with a van, an extension ladder, and an assortment of tools and power saws showed at my door. Each man sported a Lech Walesa mustache, and whatever language they shared sounded as if it were filled with Ø’s and Œ’s; but they spoke English well enough, were more than happy to describe what they were doing, and took extra time to show me how to apply those methods to the lighter, easier-to-install regular windows.
By 4:00 p.m., I stood on the front porch, waving goodbye to them as they backed out of the driveway. Then, with my hand still in the air and the thoughts of a frosty beer entering my mind after their job well done, I noticed Rose standing in front of Wendell’s house; she’d floated in from the north, as quiet as a cold front, and stood across from me now with a hand in the air, too.
“Aye, Jim,” she called out. Of course, she held her Bible in her other hand, and she beckoned now with the one held aloft. “Do yeh have some frrree time on yeh?”
With Eric and Rachel out till supper and Maddy still at work, I did; and, being one of those bullshitters who needed at least a moment’s notice to compose a passable lie, I admitted it.
“C’mon on overrr, then, an’ we can talk ferrr a wee bit.”
I stood there a while longer, wearing a fey smile (if that’s the word I’m looking for) and considering my situation; I had no place to hide.
“Hang on, Rose. Let me get my Bible.”
I pivoted, the words, Hang on, Rose. Let me get my Bible, still ringing in my ears like some drug-induced babbling: Let me get my goddamned Bible. I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs and let reality back in, then stepped towards my front door.
“Therrre’s no need. We can use mine,” she called out.
Since I stood in front of the door anyway, I locked it, making a mental note to be home by 5:30 to avoid stranding anyone. Then, pocketing the key, I ventured across the street to my waiting tutor.
“So,” she said. “I haven’t seen yeh in a while.”
“Yeah, I’ve been busy lately.”
“Well then,” she said, hoisting her Bible. “I guess it’s time for yerrr next medicinal dose of RRRose McIntyrrre.”
We started walking, and as we arrived at her house, she turned right; out of the blue, I tugged at her cardigan sleeve and said, “Why don’t we keep going?”
“Where to?” she asked.
“I don’t know. How about the Second Cup down on the Danforth?” I asked. “We can grab a coffee or something.”
She looked up at me matter-of-factly. “I drrrink meh last cup o’ tea at noon, I’ll have yeh know.” She paused then before saying, “But if I’m ginna keep company with a man of many vices . . . why not? Maybe I’ll purrrchase a scone, teh boot.”
So we walked down to the end of our street, along Sammon Avenue, then down Greenwood Avenue.
Greenwood’s aptly named; a corridor of deciduous trees, thick and sprawling, form a canopy over its sun-dappled road and sidewalks. Greenwood Collegiate’s emerald acreage only enhances this setting. And as we passed the school’s grounds, Rose looked around and said, “It’s days like this, Mrrr. Kearrrns, that make the existence of God difficult to dispute.”
I don’t know if she expected me to agree with her or not, but as I thought about what she’d said, I could hear the horns and engines and tires-on-pavement of Danforth-Avenue traffic drifting up from one block south. Maybe she was right; or maybe a multitude of civilizations throughout the universe, sprung from happenstance and vastly beyond us in the scale of their accomplishments, already lay frozen or cooked, a billion years gone under the kilometers of ice or dust covering their dead planets — and we were destined to follow suit. But as enormous as either concept was, or any of the concepts covering the ground between, what weighed on me most at that moment was the thought that my little boy, Eric, would soon be entering Greenwood Collegiate, the sprawling ivy-covered building looming next to us. In a matter of weeks, he would have to start dealing with all the inaugural-level bullshit, complete with hormones, that members of humanity struggle with in those not-so-hallowed halls.
It scared me (and I wasn’t even allowing myself to consider Rachel at that moment).
“You’re right, Rose. It makes you think,” I said at last.
She peered up at me from under an arched eyebrow, the way an exasperated Yosemite Sam might look up at an uncooperative Bugs Bunny, started to say something, then stopped herself.
A beat later she said, “Y’know, this is the firrrst time in morrre than a decade that I’ve been off Linden Avenue on foot.”
Her statement surprised me. I knew she had two daughters and some grown grandchildren in the city who came around for visits or to take her out for groceries or doctors’ appointments or dinner. I’d seen her drive away with different combinations of them on numerous occasions. But I’d never given Rose’s private life any real thought. All I could think of saying was “Really? I thought you walked quite a bit?” And I had thought that, which was probably why I’d recommended a stroll in the first place — well, that and a fear of more booby-trapped refreshments.
“Aye, thirrrty blocks, each and everrry day … when the weatherrr’s clement, that is.”
Of course, it was obvious after she explained her routine to me, but I had no idea what she’d meant at the time, so I said what was in my head.
“All right. I’ll bite.”
“I beg yerrr parrrdon?”
“I mean, how do you walk thirty blocks a day if you haven’t been off the street in years?”
“I mean I go up and down ourrr street thirty times everrry day. The walkin’ exerrrcises meh body, the keepin’ trrrack exerrrcises meh faculties, and bein’ oota doorrrs exerrrcises meh spirrrits. An’ between theh walks I can rrrest on meh porrrch with meh book. But I’d be daft at meh age teh go rrroamin’ the city everrry day ferrr thirrrty blocks just teh stay fit. You’d be rrreadin’ in the newspaperrr aboot meh lifeless carrrcass in no time.”
Some quick calculations gave me this semi-useless knowledge: if our street was 150 yards long (one and a half football fields seemed about right), her odometer would clock in at about 4,500 yards per day, close to two and a half miles, or, considering her small stride, nine to ten thousand steps, the old Japanese adage for a long, healthy life.
“I’m impressed,” I said.
“Don’t be. I’ve got absolutely nothin’ else teh do with meh time besides watchin’ nonsensical television prrrogrrrams an’ pickin’ up the occasional potboilerrr . . . an’ even those don’t boil so well these days.”
“Have you ever thought about moving in with one of your children?” I asked.
A moment passed, and I assumed she wasn’t going to answer. Then, “Nay. The imposition would be too much.”
“You shouldn’t think that way,” I said. “I’m sure one of them would be glad to take you in.”
“Arrre yeh barrrmy? Any one of them would, an’ they’ve offerrred; but I’m talkin’ about them bein’ an imposition on mehself.”
I stood corrected and kept pace in silence for a while — with any concerns about the distance we’d chosen to walk, at least, put to rest. But as I stole a quick glance down and across, it seemed ironic that this leathery little woman, this tough, feisty poster girl for natural selection and survival of the fittest, swinging her Bible before her with conviction, was about to turn the corner and step smack dab into the hustle and bustle of Muslimtown.
Now, I don’t know if Muslimtown sounds anti-denominational or bigoted, but I wouldn’t know how else to label this stretch of the city, an area whose population over recent years had replaced the Glaswegian Bakery at the corner of Kendall and Danforth, the Rexall Drugs and Glidden paint store nearby, and the sundry Anglo shops and services all the way to Donlands Avenue with a string of halal supermarkets, video stores plastered with posters of attractive, bushy-eyebrowed thespians, a mosque, and assorted Islamic book stores. The strip held the fathomless sounds and smells of a small Chinatown or a slice of Little India … but I never could quite recognize the nationality (or nationalities) of the people inhabiting it, only the occasional English words posted on windows and walls that related to its ruling religion: Islam.
But whatever nationality the neighborhood represented, it was new to Rose.
“What the—?”
She stopped suddenly and looked up at me as if I’d dragged her into a back alley.
Her reaction caught me off guard. She had to have frequented this neighborhood before today. Then again, if she hadn’t ventured off Linden Avenue on foot in more than ten years, maybe she hadn’t; or maybe she’d seen it from the isolated comfort of her daughter’s air-conditioned Lincoln Towne Car (a totally different view altogether) as she rummaged through her purse or gabbed or polished her glasses with a hanky.
But we were there now, so I said, “Let’s go, Rose. It’s only three more blocks.”
We started up again, trying to negotiate through a crowd that only got thicker as we approached the mosque. Men wearing flowing, light summer robes milled about, with the occasional woman, covered from head to toe, rounding out the mix. An event of some sort seemed to be taking place.
For me, the trip was as frustrating as any other walk down any other high-traffic sidewalk; some in the throng deferred, some didn’t; some smiled politely, some didn’t; the crowd consisted of people, which meant it held about the same ratio of assholes I’d estimated with Eric in the National Sport parking lot way back when: a seventy-five/twenty-five to ninety/ten mix.
Rose, though, wasn’t accustomed to such overwhelming numbers. Parties as small as three people constituted a crowd on our street’s spacious sidewalks, and more often than not, unless acquainted, one group of that size would cross the street before engaging another of similar size.
By the time we’d reached the mosque, panic had overtaken her; she craned her neck this way and that looking for an end to the crowd. As she did, we came across a young and, let’s say, hefty man. In fact, to Rose, the back of his tunic must have resembled a drive-in movie screen. He stood engrossed in conversation, unaware of her existence. She stepped one way and the other, then pondered the curb for a moment before thinking better of it.
“Excuse meh,” she said at last.
The man didn’t respond, so again she said, “Excuse meh!”
Still no answer, but now I could sense something other than panic issuing from her. She reached up, touched his shoulder, and for a third time said, “Excuse meh!” Then, having secured his attention, she added, “Do yeh think yeh could take up anymorrre of theh sidewalk?”
He peered at her over a curly, night black beard that stopped just short of his eyes, acknowledging her presence for the first time.
“Pardon me.”
“Yeh hearrrd me,” she said, drawing herself up to four-foot-ten.
“What are you even doing here?” the man asked, his accent heavy, Middle-Eastern, but not something I could pinpoint.
“Me!” Rose spit out. “What theh hell arrre yeh doin’ herrre?
Of course, she’d implied, all of yeh; and I might have piped up and said, What the hell are either of you doing here. Then a Native American could have come up to me . . . and, well, you could continue ad nauseam.
In an effort to diffuse the growing confrontation, I took Rose by the elbow and aimed her towards the curb, but she shook me off, looked up at her antagonist, and, with her Bible clutched to her chest, said in her best orator’s voice: “‘I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, “move from here to there” and it will move.’”
The huge man looked at her for a moment, pensive, before responding: “And I say to you that ‘if a man seeks permission to enter someone else’s house three times and gets no answer, he should retire.’”
“I don’t see any house arrround herrre,” Rose said.
The man’s eyes flicked briefly to the mosque before he said, “And I see no mountain.”
Jesus H. Mohammed. And I saw no sandbox, just the pail and shovel they refused to share. But I’m one to talk. I’d had my sandbox scuffle no so long ago, and I knew how quickly these confrontations could escalate. Or I thought I did, but before I could do anything, Rose, added, “Well, I guess yeh haven’t consulted a lookin’ glass lately, have yeh, larrrd arrrse?”
“Your insults mean nothing to me, old lady,” he said, now nodding at her Bible, “for ‘he that chooses a religion over Islam, it will not be accepted from him and in the world to come he will be one of the lost.’”
And just like that, the small throng around us stopped their various conversations and turned to watch as the huge man and Rose squared towards each other; for a moment the two attempted to stare each other down as they searched for their next quote, for the next accusation that held more meaning than sez you or he who dealt it.
And in that small space of time, I applied the one lesson I’d learned over the last couple of weeks, the one about not stepping across the line and endangering your very existence over nothing (because I hadn’t been involved in any of the insults or badgering, and, hence, was more leery with fear than stupid with anger). I broke the uneasy silence with an apology.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Actually, we’re both sorry. I guess with the heat and the crowds and stuff, things got a bit out of hand.”
The uneasiness resumed for a beat, hung there, and then the big man took one step to the side. I grabbed Rose’s elbow and ushered her past, not making eye contact, not saying anything else, just moving. I maintained our purposeful, talk-free stride until the crowds had thinned to normal, then I slowed us down and turned to her.
“So, just out of curiosity, Rose. Are there any countries and denominations in the hereafter, or do you leave all birth certificates and respective Good Books at some sort of no-name Pearly Gate depository?”
“If you’rrre thinkin’ what I think you’rrre thinkin’, it’d be simplerrr ferrr that fat man to fit thrrrough the eye of a needle than to enterrr the kingdom of my God.”
There I had it: Rose’s thorny side. And now she moved forward with her chin out, still ready to do battle. But how much of that was fear? I’d blown a gasket when facing a much smaller hurdle in life than living out its final days, waiting, wondering, waking up each morning and counting the moments.
It was ironic, though, that scufflin’ Jim Kearns, the only heathen in the bunch, had been the one to smooth things over, and this anti-pious thought must have radiated from me as we approached the coffee shop.
“Don’t be thinkin’ so much of yerrrself,” she said as I pulled open the Second Cup’s front door. “Yeh’ve put yerrr foot in it much worrrse than that rrrecently. An’ when we’ve securrred a seat, I’ll open meh Bible an’ show yeh a dozen passages that prrrove I was rrright an’ he was wrrrong.”
Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t. It would still be easier than reading the damn thing.
Thank you for taking time to read my work. I don’t claim to know much about what is wrong with our world, but I hope that I provide some light respite during these difficult times.