Waiting for Joe

by Sandra Birdsell

  They’d come over the fence and through the bushes behind the church, and Joe’s arms were criss-crossed with white scratches that were already fading as he knelt in front of the window. Although the window was rain-swollen, one of its hooks had been left undone. While Steve kept watch, Joe wedged the screwdriver between the casement and the frame, levering it hard, and the rotting wood began to splinter. Then the screwdriver slipped, and he felt a stab of pain. “I hurt myself,” he moaned and threw the tool to the ground and sucked at the flap of skin on his knuckle where blood had begun to pool.

  “Let me,” Steve said, and after a curious glance at Joe’s wound, he dropped to his knees and elbowed him aside. It was his screwdriver anyway, it was his idea, he should be the one to do it. And it was he who had seen the new man in the neighbourhood, the pastor, wheel the gumball machines on a dolly up the front steps of the church.

  A trickle of blood hurried like a red worm across the back of Joe’s hand. His mother would notice the cut and want to know how it had happened. If he said he’d got it at the pool, she’d worry about safety and call the city pool authorities.

  The sound of a whistle spurted up from the park across the street, and the din of shrieking children subsided. The lifeguard was clearing the pool for a head count. That was where Joe was meant to be. He already knew how to swim, he just didn’t know how to breathe while swimming. But he was not going to kneel in the cement wading dish with the little kids, put his face in the water and learn how to turn his head to take sips of air. He could hear his own heartbeat now, and then a dull rolling sound, like a bowling ball going down an alley. An instant later the sky filled with Tutor jets flying in formation, so low he could see the rivets in their underbellies.

  “The Snowbirds,” Joe yelled and pointed, the roar of the engines popping in his ears now, although the planes were already gone. The Snowbirds were going to put on a show at the airfield later in the week as part of the Centennial celebrations. When Steve didn’t reply, Joe turned to see the window hanging lopsided from its hook and Steve on his stomach sliding through the opening. The air rushed out at Joe from the basement, musty cold, like a witch had yawned. I’m not going down there. Then Steve’s head disappeared as his feet met the floor, and Joe had no choice but to follow.

  He stood beside Steve beneath the open window, the throbbing in his knuckle forgotten. Dad. He could be going past the church right now. Or he might be delivering the six-pack to his wartime buddy, Earl, and cutting through the park to get to his apartment. He’d see that Joe wasn’t at the swimming pool. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he noticed the wires overhead, and the curtains strung from them as room dividers, bunched up against the far wall. A silver chair glowed out from the semi-darkness at the centre of the room.

  “See, I told you,” Steve said and went over to the gumball machines at the bottom of the stairs. He twisted the handles of the money slots, hoping for pennies and gum, and got neither. Then he grabbed hold of one of the glass containers and rocked it, and the gumballs inside rattled noisily.

  The ceiling above Joe squeaked. Steve heard it too and stared at the door at the top of the stairs, but there was no other sound. The silver chair, Joe thought. It looked like a spindle back kitchen chair, and should someone come he could easily pick it up and throw it in their path and gain enough time to reach the window. As he planned his escape, it occurred to him that getting out through the window wasn’t going to be as easy as getting in had been. Even if he used the chair to stand on, he still might not be able to boost himself onto the ledge.

  “There’s no one up there,” Steve said, sounding disappointed. “Let’s go see what it looks like.”

  It was a poor excuse for a church. Verna had said this only days ago when she and Joe were going past the IODE hall and saw the new sign beside the front steps. The square two-storey building had been empty for years, and then for a short time it was a postal station, and now a church called “The Salt & Light Company.” The stone-clad building was mottled with trace fossils and chain coral, and up near the top of the front door was a coral the size of Joe’s hand that looked like a sunflower. He’d discovered it during a school field trip, had been amazed at the thought that the charcoal rubbings he held in his hands were of creatures who’d lived billions of years ago, and in a tropical sea, right where he stood. During a time when trees had looked like asparagus. Now, whenever he went past the building, all he felt was his mother’s indignation. A church should look like a church. I’m not going up there, he told himself. But Steve had already reached the door at the top of the stairs and discovered it was open.

  The carpet muffled Joe’s footsteps as he followed Steve across the vestibule toward the double doors that opened to the large hall, which had become the sanctuary. Arranged about the room haphazardly was an assortment of old sofas and overstuffed easy chairs covered in denim throws, and among them were folding chairs. The blinds on the tall and narrow windows were drawn, and as Joe followed Steve further into the hall, one after another they lifted in a sudden swell of hot air, the pull rings rattling noisily. It was as though a ghost had walked along the length of the place and lifted each blind in passing.

  “I think I’ll have a sleep,” Steve said and faked a yawn, then fell backward onto one of the sofas near the front of the room where he folded his arms behind his head and pretended to snore.

  Joe went over to the table near the couch and the wooden box at its centre. There was a Bible on the box, and the back of the box was open. Inside was a collection plate, quarters, dimes and nickels scattered across its felt surface. Joe reached for the plate, thinking of the coins in his father’s canoe jar, and how he might replace the money he had borrowed from it before Alfred discovered that his savings were not growing any larger.

  “Boys,” a woman exclaimed suddenly, her voice coming from behind Joe, and the shock sent the plate flying from his hand. The coins spilled across the floor, bounced down the single step in front of the table and spun to a stillness. Joe began to shiver. He turned to see the wife of the pastor, Maryanne Lewis. She was a young platinum-haired woman, her tanned shoulders bare, and she was wearing the same lime-green tube top as when he and Steve had seen her and the pastor going in and out of the house on Walnut Street the day they’d moved in.

  “Sit down,” she said to Steve who had jumped to his feet. The bangles on her wrist clacked as she pointed to the sofa he’d been lying on. “Now.” Her voice became sharp.

  Steve rolled his eyes, sighed heavily, and slumped down into the cushions. Joe went over and sat beside him, his heart hammering in his ears.

  “It’s okay, honey,” Maryanne called out, her voice echoing in the vaulted ceiling. Joe turned and saw a balcony, heard a door up there close and someone descending stairs. The pastor, likely. A chunky man with a brush cut, according to Cecil, the accountant, who boarded at Joe’s house.

  “Say, boys. Welcome to the Salt & Light Company. But I can think of better circumstances for us to have met, right?” Maryanne Lewis smiled suddenly, her mouth stretching across her narrow face to reveal large square teeth. “Now why don’t you tell me what you’re after?” She glanced down at the coins on the floor.

  Gumballs. They’d planned on filling their pockets and throwing them at the kids in the wading pool to see if the water would turn colour.

  “You think we were going to steal something,” Steve said.

  “What’s it look like to you?” Maryanne said. Her tone remained friendly though, and her eyes softened as she took in Steve’s dull hair falling across one side of his face to his jaw, jeans worn through both knees, no laces in his battered running shoes. Her grey eyes came to rest on Joe, lingered on his bloodied hand.

  “I’ve seen you two around the neighbourhood. You live nearby, don’t you?” Her voice was quiet now. When they didn’t reply she looked directly at Joe. “You live in the yellow house, near Rosemont Place, right?”

  “Right,” Joe muttered, concealing his surprise.r />
  “I thought so. So, guys, how’s summer vacation going? It doesn’t look like you have a lot of fun things to do. How would you like to go horseback riding?”

  “Yes,” Steve exclaimed, and struggled upright from his slouch, leaned forward now, his arms resting on his knees.

  Yes, Joe thought, but it was unlikely his mother would allow him to go.

  Maryanne laughed. “That’s just one of the things we’ve got planned. We’re going to have a summer day camp. Right here at the church. You boys should come. Listen, I’ve got an idea. How would you two like to earn a dollar?” She needed someone to stuff mailboxes with flyers advertising the camp, she explained. They should come to the church in the middle of next week. The flyers would be ready for delivery by then.

  “What do you say? Have we got a deal?” She flicked a strand of platinum hair from the side of her neck revealing a pink hoop earring; freckles the colour of toast met the ribbed edge of her lime-green top.

  “It’s a deal,” Steve said.

  “Okay,” Joe said.

  “But you know, of course, that the pastor and I will need to speak to your parents about what went on here today. I want your names and addresses.”

  “Joe Beaudry,” Joe said. She already knew where he lived.

  “You should run some water over that hand, Joe Beaudry,” she said and indicated that he and Steve should follow her as she went toward the foyer and basement stairs beyond, her stride long and her light paisley skirt flaring around her calves. Joe saw how her ankles dipped inward, that her sandals went one way and her feet another. As she was about to descend the stairs he noticed Pastor Ken at the bottom, looking up at them, hands at his hips.

  “They didn’t break the window,” he said.

  What Joe and Steve had committed was called break and entry. Joe heard Pastor Ken tell his parents this later on in the day as they talked in the living room, and Joe stood in the upstairs hall listening. The stairwell amplified their voices, as it did the television, his mother setting the table for breakfast in the dining room late at night, the last thing she did before going to bed.

  “Break and entry,” Alfred repeated as though he didn’t quite understand.

  “They used a screwdriver to get the window open, and came in through the basement,” Pastor Ken said.

  “Way to go, kid,” Cecil sang out, and Joe turned to see the boarder in the doorway of his room. Butting in where he had no business.

  “Joe and Steve are good kids, believe me, we know the difference, and so we didn’t want to get the police involved,” Maryanne said.

  “Lucky for you,” Cecil said and then closed his door.

  “But they’ve got to understand that what they did was serious, and in another situation, it might have resulted in serious consequences.” Pastor Ken picked up where his wife left off.

  “Did the boys cause any damage?” Alfred broke in to ask. “No, no damage,” Maryanne said.

  “Well, then,” Alfred said.

  “But if my wife hadn’t caught them when she did, they might have stolen money. We keep a bit of change in the offering plate in case of emergencies, and the boys found it.”

  “Joe’s got what he needs, he doesn’t need to steal.” From the sound of Alfred’s voice Joe knew his father had stood up and moved toward the downstairs hall. He expected to be called to come and face the music, but his father sounded more angry at the Lewises than with him.

  Verna cleared her throat and Joe imagined she was fingering the cigarette package in her pocket, wanting a smoke badly as she did when she was upset. He had explained his injured knuckle while she prepared supper, saying he and Steve had banged off a roll of caps with a piece of brick and he’d smashed his finger, all the while waiting for the phone or doorbell to ring.

  “What if we hadn’t been there?” Pastor Ken went on to say, the voice of authority now. “What if there’d been an injury and the boys couldn’t get out of the basement?”

  “Honey, it’s okay,” Maryanne said quietly, and then to Joe’s parents, “Ken and I have been calling on people in the neighbourhood to introduce ourselves. I’m just sorry that our visit had to be over this. However, we want you to know that Joe is always welcome at our church. It would be great if he would come, by the way. We’re going to have a day camp, for kids Joe’s age and younger. We’re planning a trip to the zoo to see the polar bear cub. And you folks too, we’d love to see you too, there’s going to be something for everyone.”

  “Thank you, but we have our own religion,” Verna said and Joe was surprised.

  “Well, praise the Lord, that’s good to hear,” Pastor Ken said. “And so I’m sure you know that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and he rose up from the grave. He’s alive, and wants to be your personal friend.”

  Verna interrupted. “Yes, well. Thank you for coming by. You can be sure Joe won’t cause trouble again.”

  They had risen and were going toward the downstairs hall. Joe turned away from the stairwell and went into his parents’ bedroom, their voices only a murmur as he hurried through it and out onto the upstairs veranda. Pastor Ken and Maryanne Lewis emerged from the overhang of the eaves, and went down the veranda steps. Joe saw Alfred then, the shiny bald spot on the back of his head like a yarmulke, as he stood for a moment watching the pastor and his wife go along the walk before he came back inside.

  When the Lewises had moved in, Cecil had reported at the dinner table that the couple were not well off, judging from the quality and amount of furniture he’d seen being unloaded from the moving van. And they were Americans, he’d learned that from the waitress at the Hot Spot Café—the couple had been in twice for a fish-and-chip supper and both times, instead of a tip, they’d left religious tracts.

  “God dammit, Joe. Get down here, now,” Verna yelled from the bottom of the stairs.

  She had rolled up the newspaper and shook it at him as he came down the stairs, in the way she shook it at cats scratching in the garden, sometimes throwing the paper at them, but more often, not.

  “What in God’s name?” she shouted.

  Got into you, Joe finished silently, his arms feeling heavy now, as though he was carrying dumbbells.

  “I could scream,” she said, and flung the rolled-up newspaper into the boot rack. She sounded nearer to crying.

  Alfred came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, steered her over to the stairs where she sat down and patted the step beside her. When Joe sat down, she snaked her sinewy arm round his waist.

  “You know what this means, Joey. No TV for a week.”

  “Again,” Joe said. In the last week of school he and Steve had spent an afternoon bumming around downtown, and the principal had called to tell his mother he hadn’t shown up. His mother’s stiff hair prickled the side of his face, the perspiration ringing the underarm of her blouse, smelled like vinegar. He knew she hated not being able to watch television almost as much as he did, but she would not turn it on until he’d gone to bed.

  “Yes, again. You were faced with making a choice, and, again, you chose the wrong one.”

  There was a time you couldn’t get a word in edgewise, and now, I’ve got to go at Joe with a crowbar to get anything out of him. Joe had overheard his mother say this during one of her phone calls to her friend up north. And when I do, he tells lies, and with such a poker-straight face. I don’t know what’s got into him.

  “Joe and me are going for a walk, to clear the air,” Alfred said. “Right now, Joe.” He needed to be at work at the nightclub earlier than usual tonight as one of the bar refrigerators wasn’t cooling.

  “I’d sure like to go with you,” Verna said as Joe got up. But she still had the supper table to clear, and she wanted to boil eggs for tomorrow’s salad. She locked eyes with her husband and said, “We’ll need to talk when you get back.”

  She followed them out onto the veranda and leaned against the pillar at the top step, and then pulled her blouse free from the waistband of her skirt and
flapped the front of it to cool herself. I’m sorry, Joe thought, and suddenly, he was. He was sorry that he didn’t know what had got into him.

  “No TV for a week,” she repeated and offered him her cheek.

  “I know,” Joe said and turned away.

  He wheeled his bike across the veranda and bumped it down the steps. Alfred had already reached the sidewalk by the time he’d mounted it. But he soon passed Alfred by, wanting to ride fast, to pop a wheelie and take off, turn tight figure eights at the intersection at Portage Avenue and wait for Alfred to catch up. But he knew this was not the time to draw attention to his father’s slowness.

  They went along the sidewalk, the elm trees a tunnel of green, the aphids excreting sap that mottled the cement with dark grey stains. The stickiness tugged at the tires of Joe’s bike as he rode over what looked like the shapes of bodies lying on the walk.

  When they came near Vimy Ridge Park, several of Steve’s younger sisters and a brother were trying to gain a toehold on the fence at the wading pool that had been locked for the night. There were eight Greyeyes kids in all, Steve being the oldest. Verna sometimes said she couldn’t keep track of them, and likely that was the attraction of Steve, all those kids and an easygoing mother who, she joked, wouldn’t mind if they played baseball in the house.