"They said those apartments are the most reasonable. Can you believe $2,200 is considered reasonable?"
Steve didn't hear me. Instead, he was staring at the book on my bed. `Jay Jarvis reads verses?" he asked.
"A few.... You ever get twinges of peace?"
"Used to. Not lately, though."
At that point we stopped talking to watch the game. It is a sin of the worse variety for guys to talk when a game is on.
But after only one inning, I felt groggy and began to nod off. Steve said he'd better go, then asked if he should leave the game on. I told him yeah, it was the top of the fourth and Sosa would be coming up to bat so maybe I could stay awake.
I could not stay awake.
The announcer shouted, "What a Herculean blast by the great Sosa!" But Sosa was already rounding third base, and I was disappointed-not for missing the home run itself, but for missing the announcer's animated descriptions, like "Getouttahere!", "Kissthatbabygoodbye!", and my alltime favorite, "Ladies and gentleman, Elvis has left the stadium!"
I hate dozing off and missing home runs.
The Cardinals were changing pitchers, bringing in a lanky lefthander, when someone knocked loudly on my hospital room door. I asked who it was, but there was no response. Then a second knock, this one softer. I figured it was the night nurse.
"Come in," I said, muting the game.
The door opened, and beneath the brim of my captain's hat, all I could see were long legs, khaki shorts, and a lime-studded ankle bracelet.
I removed my hat. "Hey, stranger."
"You still awake?" asked Darcy, looking elegant on this September night, even in a Carolina sweatshirt. Her blonde mane was fresh washed and combed pencil straight.
`Just barely, but thanks for stopping by."
"Smells so sanitized in here," she said, scanning the room.
"Lovely, eh?"
"How's the head?"
"Better. It'll be oblong for another week. Steve just left ten minutes ago."
"Sorry I missed him. I brought your mail." And she handed me a thick, banded clump of envelopes.
"Thanks. Wasn't sure you got my message." A quick shuffle through the stack revealed nothing any hospitalized person would care to receive. No more get-well cards. No letters, either. Only junk.
"I would've weeded that out," she said, glancing up at the television, "but wasn't sure if you were a coupon clipper."
"Never used a coupon in my life."
"Me either," she said, taking my unwanted mail and tossing it in the trash.
Darcy wanted to examine the back of my head, and I agreed to let her. She stood beside me, and soon I felt long fingers tracing through my hair.
"Careful, I'm fragile."
"They shaved a nice square. You don't remember falling?" she asked.
"Last thing I saw was a dark fin chasing a gold lure, and then it's all a blank."
"I don't like fishing," she said, dismissing the subject as she stopped her examination to dig in her purse. "But I did bring you some peppermints."
"Cool. Get any more speeding tickets?"
She returned to the guest chair and said, "Nope. I'm trying to repent."
I stuffed a second pillow behind my back. "So, bring me up to date on Lydia."
Darcy crossed her legs. "Lydia needs to keep her private stuff private, so she won't have to explain so much. There's public stuff, and then there's private stuff. Public stuff is cars and clothes and fashion and weather. Private stuff is, well, private. But I feel for Lydia; she'll have to learn to trust again ... the crux of being single and female."
"That goes for the male gender, too."
She stroked her hair and said, "Pales in comparison."
"Does not."
"Does too."
"We're just more guarded with our emotions, Darcy."
"Emotions? Y'all compartmentalize us like a box of corn flakes."
"I have never compared a woman to a breakfast cereal in all my life."
Her eyes widened. "Jay, are you sure you want to defend the male gender from a hospital bed?"
Defending the male gender from a hospital bed sounded ominous, so I unwrapped a peppermint and changed subjects. "Okay, you win. Now tell me how you became best friends with Allie."
She eased her long frame back in the chair. "College. We had adjoining dorm rooms at Appalachian State my first semester, but I couldn't stand the place."
"But she told me it was great there."
Darcy frowned. "Too many tree-huggers and granola types. All that back-to-nature stuff and no good shopping malls. That's why I transferred to Carolina. But she and I stayed in touch through graduation. Every summer she tried to get me to come work at a camp near Grandfather Mountain. But I said no way, not living in a wood shack with five other girls and no air conditioning and her flinging food across the campfire. No wonder she ended up in the jungles of Ecuador."
"Seems to be called to mission work, that's for sure."
"I'm just glad God chose her for that and lets me write checks of support, 'cause I could never be a missionary." She glanced at her watch, rose from the chair.
"Wanna swap vehicles one weekend?" I asked, hoping she'd stay and chat.
"I'll think about it, Jay.... I really need to get going."
"But I love convertibles. I'll fill it up with gas."
"We'll see."
"Will wash and wax it, too."
"Sleep well," she whispered, patting my foot. "And congrats on the job in New York."
The door closed, and I knew only one person could've told her my job news. My feet touched down again on cold tiles, and I took three wobbly steps to the window. Four floors below, against the curb, Lime Sherbet sat empty beneath a streetlight.
I waited a couple minutes, and there they came down the sidewalk, hand in hand.
A quick peck from her to him. Then another, from him to her.
She even let him drive.
Friday noon, from the doorway of room 521, Nurse Sonya watched me walk the hall. She conferred with a doctor, then said I could go home. While I gathered my things, she issued one last warning, complete with wagging index finger. "Doc wants you to promise to work only half days next week."
"I promise."
Steve had his orange jeep parked at the hospital's entrance, radio blaring, top down. Whoever heard of getting driven home from the hospital with the top down? Twenty minutes of sunshine, laced with exhaust fumes, and we reached my suburban cul-de-sac. I figured now was a great time to press him with regard to his incognito Presbyterian romance.
"Wanna stay and make tacos with me, Steve?"
"Nah," he said, stepping around his Jeep. "Got lunch plans."
"And with whom do we haveth plans?" I asked, reaching for my dirty clothes.
He shut the passenger door. `Just plans, bro. I'll grab your mail for ya."
So much for pressing. Walking to my front door, I felt a little weak, a little weird, trying to reorient. Six newspapers had faded to yellow on the sidewalk, and my Chevy Blazer somehow had returned to the driveway.
"Maurice brought your truck over," said Steve, returning from the mailbox. "Keys on the front tire."
"How original. Any letters?"
"Phone bill and power bill," he said, handing off the parcels.
"No letters?"
"Sorry, bro."
Rumbling out of my cul-de-sac, he seemed a most ambiguous sneak. Steve could save me from drowning, could even drive me home from the hospital, but after all was said and done, he was still a sneak.
Darcy Yeager?
Now there's a total mystery. Draped in lime.
Within the blunt world of brokerage, such notes found on your computer monitor are considered warm and compassionate.
It was Monday, my first half day back at the office. Mr. Brophy and my fellow brokers stopped by between the buying and selling to ask, "How's the head?" though they seemed more interested in what types of fish were tailing Steve's gold lure.
In grou
ps of threes and fours, they crowded around my desk, ignoring the market and egging me on. I began my story a fifth time but stopped in midsentence as Line One glowed red.
"Mr. Franklin Gruber on the phone, sir. "
"Thank you, Glenda. Put him on, please.... No sir, Mr. Gruber, I have not quit the brokerage business to go sit under a palm tree. I fell and hit my head. Yessir, the financial news is accurate, Toys `R' Us is up 40 percent from where you sold."
Click.
Soon as Mr. Gruber hung up on me, I began telling the other brokers about Maurice and the gaff. They kept interrupting, asking me to tell it again, tell it again. Phones went unanswered as our oldest broker, Marty, even asked to see the evidence. I refused.
"Beatrice Dean on Line One, sir."
"Thanks, Glenda."
I ushered them from the office and grabbed my headset, holding it to my ear because of the stitches. "Hello, Beatrice."
"We're all packed, dear. And they fixed my hearing aid!"
"So, you're really gonna go see Europe?"
"We leave tomorrow. Have you been ill? I called thrice last week."
"Been in the hospital. Nurse Sonya sent me home Friday."
"Seeing a nurse, too? My, my, Mr. Jarvis, we do get around, don't we?"
"I meant ... oh, never mind. But it's good to hear from you."
"Did you like the gingerbread cookies?"
"Delicious. But the eyeballs fell out."
"I'll mail you the recipe. So tell me, dear, is it time to buy stock again?"
"But Beatrice, you just sold. You're not becoming a trader, are you?"
`Just teasing, Jay. Actually, I've been shopping for fashions to wear in Europe. And you?"
"I'm being promoted, Beatrice. To New York City."
"Oh, heavens, you won't last a week. Besides, haven't you heard the news?"
"What news?"
"It's all concrete, dear. Nobody can grow a garden, unless, of course, they live on the roof, and then they gotta deal with all those pigeons tainting the tomatoes. It's just no good there."
"When were you in New York?"
"Oh, I've never actually been. Just read about it. But I have visited Hendersonville, North Carolina. We went square dancing. Back in the fifties, I think ... or maybe it was the forties. I forget."
"Did you buy the traveler's checks like I recommended?"
"Have all the cash in my purse, dear."
"You're carrying cash? In your purse?"
"Thirty-six thousand. Spent the other four on clothes. And we're not coming back till Thanksgiving! I got our entire garden club to go. It'll be eleven of us women, plus Trevor the handyman."
"Do any of you ladies speak a foreign language?"
"We thought about lessons, but there's just no time. Too much else to learn. I've been teaching the ladies how to flirt. It's all in the eyes, you know."
"So I've heard. And you're paying for the trip?"
"We must live, dear. While we have the chance."
"I'm slowly learning about that."
"Yes, yes, we all have much to learn, don't we? Well, I just called to chat. I must go water my lilies; they're famished. And I'm sending over a fresh batch of flowers for that drab space you people call a lobby."
"Drab is right. You have a wonderful trip, Beatrice."
"Yes, dear. Now, if both the nurse and the one behind the aqua door turn cold, you give me a call."
And with that, my six-year brokerage relationship with Beatrice Dean came to an end.
Closure.... That word has always irked me.
Tyrus Williams was serious about my giving back. So serious that he left me four phone messages that Monday afternoon. I'd been summoned by clergy. Tyrus said the adults he had in mind for free financial advice could not meet that week. So Brother Tyrus-being a resourceful man of the cloth-took advantage of my time off and found an alternative Wednesday afternoon audience: a third grade class.
I was not aware that Greenville, S.C., extended so far to the west. After miles of empty strip malls, mill housing, and netless basketball courts, I arrived at the school, Thurmond Elementary. Their yellow buses stood at ease, idling in single file. Down a hallway of crayon-marred walls, I located room 9C, knocked once, and opened the door.
Tyrus stood near the back, talking with the youngsters.
"Come in," said the teacher, a Mrs. Dawson. She peered over bifocals and hushed the class. I scanned the room. Twenty blank faces stared back.
Mrs. Dawson allowed me fifteen minutes, but it was the last fifteen minutes of the day and the kids were bouncing in their desks, awaiting the bell. She was introducing me when a flat-topped boy in the front row raised his hand. I pointed at the boy, who had on an orange NASCAR T-shirt, and raised my eyebrows. "Yes?"
"What you do to your head?" he asked, noticing the square white patch taped to the rear of my skull.
"I fell off a boat."
"You was drinkin'?"
"No. I was fishin'."
"We think you drinkin'." Flat-top turned to face his classmates, and every one of them nodded their agreement. Mrs. Dawson shushed him, shook her head in disgust, and said she was going to the ladies room.
Composure gathered, I leaned against the front of her desk, returned three goofy grins, and asked the kids if they knew the word finance.
"We can finance stuff with a credit card ... if it ain't full up," said a pigtailed girl. Again, all heads affirmed the speaker.
"And what happens if it gets full up?"
"Momma orders a new one."
"Yeah," they echoed, "Momma orders a new one."
Tyrus coughed loudly and made a throat-cutting motion with his index finger. I quickly changed direction, using the next ten minutes to explain the importance of saving and investing to these west-side kids, ending my talk with the pros and cons of buying stock. "Okay, boys and girls, we've covered a lot of ground quickly; now tell me and Mr. Tyrus what you learned about stock."
"There's livestock on my daddy's farm," said Flat-top. "And lots of poopy, too."
Three kids fell out of their desks.
"Mrs. Dawson wouldn't like that," I scolded.
"Mrs. Dawson raise chickens."
Seated behind the class clown, an attentive boy named Richie waved his hand over his head. "I know about stock," he said. "It rhymes with clock."
"And rock," said Pigtail.
Like dominoes, they fed off each other.
"And lock."
"And sock," said Flat-top.
A brief pause. Then a skinny kid in the back row piped up. "Momma's smock," he said.
"And what about block?" asked his back-row buddy.
Little thumbs twiddled. "And tick tock."
"And Doctor Spock," I offered, sensing a pause in the momentum.
"Who's Doctor Spock?" asked Flat-top.
"Never mind."
Soon the two in the back started again. "Chicken pox!"
"And fishin' docks!"
"And football teams!"
Flat-top turned and glared. "Man, football team don't rhyme with stock."
"I meant Carolina Gamecocks."
Sensing a frenzy, I held up my hands to calm them. "Okay, time out. I think you are all gonna be poets instead of financiers. So how about if I give your class one share of stock, a share of Wal-Mart, which Mrs. Dawson can sell for about fifty bucks, and you guys and girls can spend it all on candy.... Wouldn't that be great?"
Tyrus had his hand over his eyes. The kids whooped and slapped high fives.
Flat-top even called me "the Gov-nuh."
On the drive home, I was unsure if that experience qualified as using my talents.
But it was definitely outside the loop.
Doc pulled out my stitches on Thursday. Fourteen pricks and I reached back to feel the sprouting of thick blond stubble. Back home I lay on my carpet with a pillow under my head and, just for entertainment, found a TV evangelist on cable.
Amusing, those verbose tangents of the faith.
>
Especially with the volume turned up.
That day he had donned the sport coat of a former era but seemed not to concern himself with fashion, concentrating instead on rhythm and money and souls. In that order. Then he changed the order to money, souls, and more money, so I suppose rhythm, like Elvis, had left the stadium.
I felt for my stubble once more, and it covered my scar, though not nearly as well as Jesus had covered my sin, and now Mr. TV Evangelist was striving for the rhythm again but he had gotten the awfulest case of white-man's disease. His pounding and gestures and voice inflection were all out of whack, so bad that he would never have the rhythm like Tyrus, except for the sweat.
Sweat must be the reason why he had donned the sport coat of a former era. He had ruined his modern duds by sweating for God and begging for dollars, all without the benefit of rhythm.
I muted the sound and began practicing to myself how Tyrus made it stand up and do the pirouette: "If you think you are looking for God then think again because it's actually God who came looking for you. There is one mediator between God and man and that is Christ and those aren't my words they're his words and the living words and the eternal words and those are the only words you're gonna need."
I said it over and over, convinced that I could do a better job than Mr. TV Evangelist and that when the money rolled in I could multiply it faster because surely I was a better stock picker as well.
Next I thought of the bum in New York City with his blue-tinted water jug and the coins fluttering quietly to the bottom. When I moved up there I could buy him thirty jugs and teach him the proper flow and rhythm of Tyrus's great gospel presentation. Then the bum could line his jugs up and down 46th Avenue, prop himself against a skyscraper, and spend the day collecting soft-falling coinage from repentant New Yorkers. Each day after work I could go by and help him fish money from the jugs, and we'd distribute half to the less fortunate. Then we could buy shares of stock with the other half so the bum with thirty jugs could be God's entrepreneur, helping to save the souls of Yankees, plus a nice little nest egg for himself.
I did not know if these thoughts signified a maturing in the faith; it was just how my mind was working ever since the accident.
Flabbergasted: A Novel Page 22