by J. J. Gesher
The next morning, as Rosie rushed around the kitchen, Langston sat at the breakfast table, one leg tucked under him, the other swinging gently back and forth. He took leisurely spoonfuls of cornflakes.
“Mom, listen to this,” he said, reading the back of the cereal box. “What building has the most stories?”
“I don’t know. I give up.”
“The library!” he said proudly.
“Good one,” Rosie said, smiling. “That reminds me—did you pack your reading book?”
“Yeah.”
Rosie shot him a stern look, and he instantly corrected himself. “Yes, ma’am.”
She nodded approvingly, “What about lunch—take or buy?”
He returned to the cereal box and ignored his mother.
“Langston Yarber, do you hear me? I’ve got enough to do this morning without having to repeat myself.”
“Buy.” Instantly, Rosie felt tension in the air. She felt insulted whenever he gave curt answers. She believed that a fresh attitude was a sign of disrespect. He corrected the moment, softening his abruptness by offering more information. “We have corn dogs on Tuesday.”
Rosie went to her wallet and took out a few bills. As Langston cleared his dishes, she tucked the money into his pocket. It was an excuse to get close to her son. He was a full-blown boy now, but he still made her melt like he did when he was a baby.
“Don’t forget to turn in your homework.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His response was satisfying. She believed in discipline and manners and children who respected authority.
“Uncle Mo will walk you to school. Now go brush your teeth.”
Rosie headed to the back of the house and knocked on Mo’s bedroom door. “Mo? I’m leaving.”
There was no response.
“I have a faculty meeting this morning.”
Still no response.
“Langston’s ready.”
Mo grumpily opened the door. She heard the television news in the background.
“Don’t worry. I got it covered.” Mo walked over to his TV and turned it off. “The world’s on a short fuse and I gotta get a boy to school,” he muttered as he made his way to the kitchen.
Rosie threw her school bag in the back of her car. She was about to start the engine when she saw the vagrant still lying on the church steps. She quickly got out of the car and walked back into the house.
Mo was pouring a cup of coffee as she entered. “Forget your keys again?”
“No. I wanted to tell you to watch out for that drunk on the church steps. He’s been there since last night. Make him leave. He gives me the creeps.”
Mo crossed to the window, assessed the man on the steps and took a thoughtful gulp of his coffee. “Yeah, I’ll give him his walkin’ papers…if he’s alive.”
Rosie looked out the door and across the street. “Well, he’s moved around since I first saw him, so he’s not dead.”
Langston crossed to his mother’s side to see what everyone was staring at.
“Mind your own business,” Rosie said, turning him away from the window.
She shot Mo a do-something-about-this look and left for work.
Langston hefted his backpack on his shoulder and waited while Mo locked the front door. They passed the sleeping body on the church steps.
“What’s wrong with him?” Langston asked.
“Looks like he’s pretty damn tired,” Mo answered as he took Langston’s hand protectively.
Rosie stood in front of the blackboard. It was last period, World Literature, her favorite class. Unlike her other classes, this one was an elective, so all the students actually wanted to be there. They even liked to read.
Although there was some bantering in the room, the students participated and stayed on topic. Rosie was animated. She challenged the kids to analyze their personal experience to fill in the chart she’d written on the board. She needed to excite them about the next reading selection.
Across the top of the blackboard was a heading: CONFLICTS IN LITERATURE. Underneath were subdivisions: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature.
She sat on the corner of her desk, “Come on, folks, what else have you been seeing in these short stories? Any ideas?”
The class was silent. Rosie pointed to the board.
“These are all external conflicts. Think, people.” She again gave the class a moment. “Think about your own life. What’s your biggest obstacle?”
A lanky boy from the back of the class responded. “I get in my own way.”
Rosie slid off the desk and picked up the chalk. “Right!”
Janine, the heavyset girl in the front row, agreed. “Like feeling too lazy to work out even though I know it’s good for me?”
A male voice threw out a biting insult. “Yeah, like you ever exercise.”
Janine flushed bright red, and Rosie snapped her head in the general direction of the taunt. “Enough,” she ordered. Then she stood next to Janine and acknowledged her by resting her hand lightly on her shoulder.
Rosie continued, “Some of our toughest moments in life are when we’re in conflict with ourselves. Let’s think of some other examples.” As hands shot up across the room, Rosie turned and added to the board: Man vs. Self.
When the bell rang, Hansom, the acned boy who sat at the back of the class, waited for the others to leave before he approached Rosie’s desk. He was small and slender, with fine bone structure and delicate eyebrows.
Alarming cystic blemishes disfigured his face. One angry flare-up sat in the middle of his forehead, making him look like some Cyclops. The spots on his cheeks and neck were red and inflamed. She pretended not to notice. He stood stiffly in front of the desk. Rosie waited for him to state his query.
He finally spoke, offering an uncomfortable smile. “I like this class, Miss Yarber.”
“And I like having you in class.”
“Here,” Hansom said, reaching into his backpack for a small homemade wooden bird. “I made this for you.”
Rosie was impressed by the detail and proportion. “It’s lovely. I’m going to keep it on my desk.”
She carefully placed the whittled bird on a stack of papers. “Thank you so much, Hansom.”
Hansom lowered his head, embarrassed by the compliment, and walked away.
Rosie was moved by the gift. She knew from talking to Kala that his home life was loaded with trouble. His mother had abandoned him, and he lived with a grandmother who was too old and disabled to do a proper job of raising him. Adding insult to injury was that name—Hansom. He was an obvious target for adolescent bullying.
Reaching a kid like Hansom—befriending him, motivating him to read and write, taking him away from his beleaguered life—was utterly satisfying. Interactions like these reminded her why she loved teaching.
Janine, the girl from class, waited for Hansom by the door. She was one of the eight percent of the student body who was white. She and Hansom made the oddest pair: one slight and timid, one thick and bold. Hansom wore tight-fitting T-shirts and skinny jeans. Janine had heavy eyeliner, dressed only in somber colors, and wore her hair down to her shoulders on one side and shaved on the other. Rosie had seen mismatched pairs like this in every school. They had little in common, yet they stuck together. Hansom and Janine rebelled against the mainstream because they couldn’t find a place in any of the social groupings. Rosie was glad that Hansom had at least one friend.
A commotion in the hallway changed Rosie’s quiet musings to alarm. There was the sound of scuffling, and a female voice screamed a string of curse words. “Fuck-you-you-turd-piece-of-shit.” The girl’s voice went up an octave, “Your-mama’s-a-whore- and-your-daddy’s-a-dickwad.”
Rosie opened her door to witness Janine shove the student who’d insulted her in class against the wall. Hansom covered his mouth to hide his delight at the kid’s comeuppance, and the kid instantly turned the full force of his aggression on Hansom. The kid was enraged. He propelled himself of
f the wall and slammed his body into Hansom, knocking them both down. Then he stood up and started kicking Hansom’s body anywhere he could. Hansom balled up and tried to cover his head, but the barrage kept coming. Janine tried to pull the attacker away. He punched hard into her soft middle, and the breath went out of her.
Rosie yelled “Stop!” as loudly as she could, but the aggressor was deaf with rage. Janine started to dry heave, and the attacker kept kicking Hansom. Magically, Edmond appeared. He lifted the kicker off his feet by the back of his neck and threw him five feet down the hallway. Rosie went to Janine while Edmond helped the terrified Hansom to his feet.
Edmond thundered at the kicker. “FRONT OFFICE…NOW!”
Before Edmond followed the aggressor down the hall, his eyes connected with Rosie. She momentarily wondered what it would be like to have Edmond’s arms around her.
CHAPTER 10
Jacob, still lying on his back on the steps of the church, saw the cloudless sky, the sugar maples, the contours of the roof. He watched a few crows dart through the trees, their raucous cawing demanding attention. He understood what he saw—sky, trees, building, birds—all familiar even if he couldn’t place them. But when he sat up to look around, he couldn’t make sense of the whole. He had no idea where he was or how he got there. A nearby wooden sign read First Baptist Church.
An older African American man stepped into view. He was tall and gangly, like his arms and legs were too long for his body. What was left of his hair was gray, and his front teeth overlapped. The man offered Jacob a sandwich in a plastic bag and coffee in a ceramic mug. “Here. You look like you could use this.”
Jacob gratefully accepted the offering. He didn’t reply.
He knew he should say something to the man, but the words would not come. He nodded his head as he unwrapped the sandwich. Without examining the contents, he tore into the food. His empty stomach had been rumbling for hours, but he hadn’t made the connection from belly to brain. He took huge bites, barely taking the time to chew between mouthfuls.
“Where you from?”
Jacob understood the question, looked at the man and shrugged. He took a slurp of the coffee and unexpectedly remembered drinking coffee with Julia. Her eyes crinkled as she laughed loudly at something or someone he couldn’t see. Before he could examine the image, he pushed the thought of her from his mind.
“You need help? You have family in these parts?” The old man waited for his response.
Jacob silently finished the sandwich and looked down at the ground, embarrassed by his inability to answer.
“Listen, buddy, I don’t know what your story is, but people will be wondering why you’re hanging around here. You’re going to have to move on,” the man ordered.
Jacob didn’t move.
“You speak English?”
Jacob did the best he could—he nodded.
“I take it your mama didn’t teach you any manners,” the man said. There was a long, uncomfortable moment of silence.
The man shooed him like a stray dog. “Move! You can’t stay here. Go home.”
Jacob rubbed his chin. The stubble was coarse, uncomfortable to the touch. His face was unfamiliar to him. He couldn’t bring himself to speak. He didn’t care about this man, he didn’t care about this town, he didn’t care about his own exhausted and reeking body. No emotion registered other than his loathing for being alive. He got up slowly and walked away from the church.
Mo watched the drifter move down the street. He was rumpled, greasy, uncombed, maybe not in his right mind. He didn’t carry a suitcase or even a few plastic market bags. Usually the homeless cart their lives on their backs. And the man didn’t smell like alcohol.
Mo took out his keys and unlocked the church doors. After forty-five years, he had his routine down pat. He made his way through the pews, picking up hymnals and pamphlets and stacking them at the entrance table. He did his second walk-through with a dust rag and furniture polish. Then he turned his attention to the pulpit and cleaned Pastor Johnson’s lectern. He straightened up the choir’s folding chairs and wiped down the organ.
In the social hall, he readied the coffee maker for choir practice, tucked in the chairs, and sponged down the tables. Through the small window he saw the homeless man asleep again, this time under a poplar in the parking lot. Mo shook his head and continued his routine. He’d make the guy move on when he finished.
He worked up a light sweat mopping the social hall and entry. Finally, he gathered the trash and went out to the dumpster in the parking lot. He loudly dumped the garbage. When that didn’t rouse the sleeping man, he went over and kicked the man’s foot. The drifter opened his eyes.
“Didn’t I tell you to leave? Don’t come back,” Mo said gruffly as he pointed down the road, “or I’ll have to call the police.”
Mo drove his ancient Ford Ranger toward the interstate, passing the American flag that flapped in the wind over Brent High School. He’d learned the protocol to raise, lower, and fold the flag when he was a Marine.
Serving in Vietnam had been the central event of his life. He was patriotic, and he’d believed in the Domino Theory. If the US didn’t stop the Communists in Vietnam, they’d have continued to the Philippines and marched across the Pacific to Hawaii, and then onto the shores of California. Although Mo had had a job as a machinist lined up at the textile plant, he’d enlisted in the Marines right out of high school. His father had been in Europe during World War II, driving a fuel truck in and out of battle zones for Patton’s tanks. Even though Black soldiers were often given the worst jobs, his father believed in the promise of the military: service, brotherhood, and honor above all.
Mo served his time in the military doing what he was told. One day he’d be guarding a base, another day, he’d be on a helicopter going deep into the jungle. He endured daylong marches, watched villages burn to the ground, and saw barely adolescent girls sell their bodies for rations. His platoon would fight for a hill all day, spend two nights there, and then abandon the ground. Two or three months later, they’d fight for the same hill again.
Although he never openly disobeyed an order, he began to question the sanity of their mission in Vietnam. Watching his friends die or get maimed prompted deeper thoughts: about good and evil, man’s cruelty, and God’s role in the universe—if there was a God. He poured out his philosophical ramblings in long letters to his sister back in Brent. She responded by sending him a Bible. He read it from cover to cover, but he never found answers.
Whatever ambition Mo had had before the war, he lost in Vietnam. His sister had married the minister of First Baptist Church in Brent, and his new brother-in-law offered him the job of caretaker. It was a decent job that allowed him to live quietly in the basement of the church. In those first years back, he dreamt of choppers flying over his bed, coming to take him to a firefight. When demons from the war interfered with sleep, he kept reading his Bible.
As he passed the neighborhood park, he saw the figure of the man from the church steps curled in a fetal position on a bench.
“That man sure likes to sleep,” he mumbled.
As he waited to pay at the Safeway, he double-checked his list and divided his purchases into two piles—one for home, one for the church. The overweight, middle-age cashier smiled broadly when she saw Mo in her line.
“Hey Maurice. How you doin’ today?”
“Can’t complain.”
The yellow ribbon and American flag on her apron reminded Mo that the cashier’s son was a Marine.
“How’s your boy?”
“He’ll be back from deployment in thirty-two days. Prayin’ that he comes home safe.”
“I’ll put in a good word for him on Sunday.”
On his way home, he made a point of driving past the park. The homeless man was no longer on the bench. To make sure he was gone, he drove around the perimeter of the park. No sign of him.
After walking Langston to school the next day, Mo was standing at the kitchen si
nk, washing the breakfast dishes. He saw from the window that the drifter was back where he’d been when Rosie first spotted him—on the church steps. He wasn’t sleeping, just sitting and staring into space.
“Like a damn lost dog,” Mo said to himself.
He crossed the street and sat down next to the man. “You got nowhere to go?”
Although he looked troubled, the man held Mo’s gaze. Mo figured a man who had problems with the law wouldn’t look him directly in the eye. But he was still suspicious.
“You got a wallet? Some kinda ID?” Mo stood up, reached into his own pocket, pulled out his wallet, and pointed to his driver’s license. “See here. My name is Maurice. But people call me Mo. You got somethin’ like this?”
The drifter stood up, his eyes darting back and forth in fear. He simply shook his head.
Mo leaned toward him. “I’m not gonna hurt you now. I’m gonna touch your pockets to see if you got somethin’ in there that’s gonna tell me who you are.”
Mo reached over to pat the drifter’s pockets, and the man recoiled. Mo quickly pulled his hands back to neutral.
“Okay, buddy, you don’t have to be afraid.”
The man looked like an animal that had been abused, cowering and afraid of the next blow. Mo felt bad for wanting to run him out of town.
“You don’t seem dangerous to me, maybe down on your luck. And you smell pretty ripe. Could use some soap and water. Come with me.” Mo walked toward the church entrance, but the man stayed rooted on the steps.
Mo turned. “Are you gonna stand there all day? Nothin’ bad’s gonna happen. We don’t do that ’round here.”
Mo led him into the church, down the basement steps, and into a small caretaker’s room: a cot, a chair, a corner partition that screened a sink, shower, and toilet. The bed was tightly tucked, military style.
Mo kept up a steady banter. “I used to live here. When I came back from the war, I needed solitude. Couldn’t handle any noise. Didn’t much feel like working in the factory. My sister was married to the pastor, Rosie’s father. He told me I could be the caretaker for the church and live here for as long as I needed. I stayed till I married Elsie. By then I was feeling more sociable.” Mo smiled at the memory.