Waiting for Joe

by Sandra Birdsell

  “I was thinking of your chairs,” Joe says now with a grin to let them know that he’s teasing. “When you lived in Winnipeg.” Reminding them of the lime-green knit cloth Maryanne had come across in a fabric store. She’d covered the seats of their dining room chairs with it and the knit had pilled so badly the chairs were mats of fuzz. It became a joke between them, Maryanne saying she had to go home and shave the chairs. Reminding them of their shared history. Hoping that she might think back to the day on the balcony when he wound up halfway across the room, without knowing how he’d got there.

  “Winnipeg was not good to us,” Maryanne says. Her thoughts turn inward as she twists at a large silver ring. She’s put on a lounging costume for dinner, a velour sweater and pants the colour of shiitake mushrooms, and her pale skin is a sheen of hydration, free of cosmetics now. Joe thinks of the products, and the youthful look of her skin.

  “The innuendo, the terrible things that were said about Ken, almost finished us,” she says with a bitterness that surprises Joe, and he thinks she may be referring to the split that came in the church when they began to focus on miracles; the boisterous and unrestrained worship they’d claimed to be spirit-led.

  “Honey, those times are over,” Pastor Ken interrupts briskly, leaving Joe to wonder what else she might have said.

  “Yes, honey, they are.”

  They’ve always called one another honey. Maybe that is why he came to call Laurie the same. Maryanne’s earrings, crescents of mother of pearl, swing against the side of her neck whenever she moves. Joe turns away from the sight, surprised by the thought that he’d like to put his mouth there.

  He wants instead to talk about being with her that hot summer afternoon soon after his mother’s death, kneeling at the Come to Jesus Chair. About being in a semi-wakeful state, his heart like a sparrow crashing from rib to rib. He was receding into a time before there had been time, and his name was being breathed out into the gases that would become the universe. God has a wonderful plan for your life. Of course he would pick that up and run with it, given that he’d been made to believe he was remarkable. The miracle birth.

  But what had happened on the balcony? Over the years he’d told himself that he might have been high on the toxic fumes of the chair’s metallic paint, and passed out. Or God had looked on him with mercy and given him what he’d most needed at that time. Rapture, ecstasy. Whatever it was, he’d experienced the same thing when he’d felt the flutter of Amina’s pulse.

  “It looks like Vancouver, on the other hand, has been good to you,” Joe says now. “You sure do live on the right side of the city.”

  “And why not?” Maryanne asks. “I remember those seat covers, Joe. What a joke, they were. You know, there was something wrong with us having to live like that. Since we’ve left Winnipeg we’ve learned that God doesn’t want his children to be poor. We’re first-class citizens, not second class. What kind of advertisement would we be for God if we lived in a shack and went around in rags?”

  “Amen,” Pastor Ken says.

  “God likes to give things to his kids,” Maryanne continues. “But we have to ask. And he wants us to be specific. You wouldn’t believe how our ministry grew once we learned to be specific.” She goes on to say that after Joe had called them, they’d specifically asked God to send him to them. “And here you are.”

  Sent. Drawn. That’s what he’d been feeling.

  “Listen, Joe, you’ve been lying heavy on our hearts for some time now,” Pastor Ken says. “So much so, that one night I just couldn’t get to sleep for thinking about you. And so Maryanne and I came to this room, to that very table over there.” He nods at the arrangement of white loveseats around the glass table. “We agreed to pray until we were at peace about you. Before we knew it, it was morning, and the sun was shining down there on the water, and I said, ‘Well, Lord, I’ll just put Joe in your hands now. I’m going to leave it up to you.’” His voice cracks with emotion.

  “Hey there, honey,” Maryanne calls out gently, and hands him a serviette.

  “Thank you, honey.” He laughs, obviously embarrassed. “It’s what I do now, Joe. I cry at the drop of a hat. About a year ago I had what’s called an ischemic happening and I’ve been left with this. I’ve become a blubbering fool. But, hey, that’s all right. I don’t mind. God can use tears too, eh Joe?” He dabs hard at his eyes and then balls the serviette in his fist.

  He’s ill, Joe realizes, noticing that he has pouches of soft flesh beneath his eyes, that his features are bloated, his fingers curled against the table are swollen.

  “I want to show you something,” Maryanne says to Joe. “You see that rug over there?” She indicates the carpet on the floor beneath the glass table. “Come and have a look at it.”

  Joe stands beside her taking in the pattern of animals on the area rug, what look to be gazelles bounding along the borders, reclining among fern-like trees, the colours rich, oranges, reds and browns on a dark blue background.

  “I’ve had it for years. Wherever we’ve gone, I’ve taken it with us. I’ll decorate a room around it if I have to. But I’ll never part with it. Once, when we were at rock bottom financially and the apartment we were in was just so awful, I was hungry for something to brighten up the place. And so I asked God for a rug.”

  Maryanne sits down on one of the loveseats, and Ken, who has joined them, sits on another and indicates Joe should do the same. As he does, he recognizes the large and well-worn Bible on the table, beside a box of tissues. It’s the same Bible that was on the homemade pulpit when he and Steve broke into the church.

  Maryanne continues her story. “And God said to me, ‘So you want a rug. Well, Maryanne, you’ve got to be more specific than that. Just what kind of rug do you want?’ And so I went out and looked at rugs. I found one. But it was way too expensive and I was ashamed to ask for so much, and so I told God the size I needed, and the colours I preferred, and let it go at that.

  “I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was, when not much later a delivery man came to the door. He had something for me, but wouldn’t say what, or where it came from. He’d been paid to deliver it on the condition that he didn’t say. And it was this carpet,” Maryanne says. “When I unrolled it I couldn’t stop crying. It’s a Balouch rug, Joe, it’s from Iran. The rug I thought was too expensive, was also a Balouch rug from Iran. But get this, Joe,” she says and leans toward him. “This one is midnight blue. Midnight blue has always been my favourite colour, and God knew that. You see, I was willing to settle for just a rug, but God wanted me to have the absolute right one.”

  “Praise the Lord,” Pastor Ken says. “I never get tired of hearing that story.”

  Joe fights the growing pressure in his chest as he pictures Lino as the Lost Boy he saw on television so many years ago, standing beside the journalist who seemed at a loss for words to describe the child’s situation. The boy was a walking skeleton, naked; his taut mouth stretched across his face, baring his teeth. He looked stunned, as though he didn’t recognize the man pointing the camera at him or the stammering journalist as being human, as his own suffering had turned him subhuman.

  “Midnight blue,” Joe says.

  “Yes. But what that really says is that God delights in blessing his children. And he wants to bless you. You’re his kid too.”

  “With a Jaguar.”

  “That’s Cerise’s car,” Pastor Ken says. “She worked hard for that, she earned that. Look, Joe,” he says and then takes a deep breath. “God wants more for you than a washed-up trailer business. What kind of advertisement is that?”

  “God wants you to be part of our ministry,” Maryanne breaks in to say.

  “Me?”

  He can hear their breathing as he holds his own breath. Sent. Drawn. Fuck. He senses their growing unease, but remains silent.

  “You know what, honey, I think Joe and I need a moment here,” Pastor Ken says.

  Maryanne gets up without a word and leaves the room.

>   “What we need, Joe, is a moment of prayer. Shall we?” Pastor Ken says.

  When Joe doesn’t answer, he says again, “Shall we?” and it is not a question. Then he closes his eyes and begins. “Our dear father. Our heavenly and almighty God and Father. Maker of heaven and earth. You have said that when two or three come together in your name, you are present. Come now and sit with us. Thank you, Jesus.”

  His voice deepens and grows strong as he goes along. Then he raises his head and hands, his palms open, to receive what words should come next. For his thoughts not to be his thoughts but something from on high that will leave Joe euphoric and brimming with hope, his fears, anxieties, uncertainties banished. After a time Ken falls silent, and then begins to whisper-pray, la, la, la, la, tickle, tickle, his tongue making little clicks.

  Joe stares down at his hands, the muscles in his neck taut.

  You know, Joe here needs, wants, your will, tickle, la, la, reveal, hold, lay, open, display, give to Joe. To Joe. La, la, la, la, click, click. He opens his eyes and blinks, as though surprised to find himself where he is, and his hands fall to his knees. Then he turns and looks at Joe. “You know, I haven’t even asked about your father.”

  It takes a moment for Joe to reply. “My father is fine. He’s going on ninety-six years old now.”

  “Oh my, ninety-six. That is just so amazing. And Laurie?” Ken’s voice drops as though her name is a cause for deep sorrow.

  Joe chooses not to answer. “You remember when we talked on the phone, I said I was going to Fort McMurray to see Steve. And that’s what I thought I would do. And then I met these people who gave me a ride.”

  And as he tells Lino’s story of having walked for five years in search of his family, Ken’s head begins to droop and his chin comes to rest on his chest. His eyes close, but sometimes he sighs, makes a sympathetic sound to let Joe know he’s listening. As Joe relates the accident, he sees the shower of glass flying toward him, Amina’s head and shoulders erupting through the windshield, he hears Lino cry out her name.

  When he’s finished, Ken expels a long breath of air, as though he’s been holding it the whole time. “Wow, oh, wow,” he says. Then he looks at the ceiling and says loudly, “Sometimes you need to yell at us, right?” He turns to Joe. “Big Daddy just gave you a shove in the right direction. He’s chased you down like Paul of Tarsus. And here you are. Do you need a bigger light or a louder voice?”

  Just then Maryanne enters the room carrying a tray. With dessert and tea, she tells them. She sets the tray down, and begins setting mugs and bowls of sorbet on the table, and as Joe watches, his churning thoughts settle.

  “Honey, you missed hearing what happened to Joe,” Pastor Ken says.

  “I heard,” she says quietly and begins to pour.

  “Just what would you have me do in your ministry?” Joe asks. “My father’s in great shape, but I sure don’t see moving him to Vancouver.”

  Maryanne looks at him, the glass teapot suspended in the air, in it a swamp of red flowers and leaves. “Of course not. But you’d be able to get to Winnipeg now and again to see him. It wouldn’t be easy, I know. But remember those first disciples, they were willing to leave everything and everyone in order to serve the Lord. Even their families,” she adds and resumes pouring.

  Pastor Ken tosses the crumpled serviette on the table. Then he sits forward on the loveseat, as though about to call a meeting to order. “What we need, Joe, is for someone to pray over the mail.” The cheques, the money orders, the requests for literature. “And we need to get organized in there. We’ve got to be able to get back to people sooner. The turnaround time is much too slow.” The volunteers they have now, who sort the mail, work in the call centre and prayer room, need to be organized.

  “You’re so good with people,” Maryanne says. With him on board, she says, she would be able to let one of the two girls moving product across the country go.

  “I don’t think so,” Joe says, startling them as he gets up from the loveseat.

  “Joe, wait,” Pastor Ken calls out to him as he leaves the room.

  Within moments Joe is striding along the winding driveway through the Japanese cherry trees, feeling the pull of the grade in his thighs. He rounds a curve and sees the gate below, realizing then that someone will need to let him out. The last bit of sunlight glazes the water in the inlet, and the spaces between the wrought iron bars on the gate look solid, like clear glass.

  He turns and takes in where he’s been, the sheen of water flowing across the black shale plates, bushes whose branches bend to the earth beneath the weight of giant, pastel flowers, the row of tall cedars beyond them. He’s seen a documentary on the various places where the Garden of Eden might have been, on a mountain in Turkey; between the Blue and White Nile rivers; the great saline reed bed where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers merge. There’s a muddiness there that matches the muddiness of the sky, and so it’s impossible to know where the water and sky meet. A concave swelling of water, of longing to forever be children walking and talking with God at the breezy end of the day. He’s seen another place where the Garden of Eden may have been, and like in the Joni Mitchell song, it’s a paved-over parking lot.

  He looks up at the ten-foot height of the gate, at the spear-shaped tips at the tops of the bars, thinking that somehow, he’ll climb over it. Then he hears a buzz, then a click, and when he pushes on the gate it opens. Maryanne calls out, her voice distorted and loud, but he gets the message. They’ll be praying for him. Good, he thinks. Everyone needs to be prayed for. The goodwill embodied in a prayer goes somewhere, and like a moth, it finds a source of light.

  Twelve

  Five years later

  WEEDS BURNT BY THE SUN crunch beneath Joe’s feet as he walks along the side of the highway, the metal water bottle clipped to the belt of his shorts pinging rhythmically against a pocket rivet, as though counting his steps. In the far distance a murky haze has begun to rise on the horizon and he fixes his eyes on it, thinking it is like silt at the bottom of a fishbowl. I don’t know. Maybe it’s rain clouds. But it’s almost too much to hope for, given that he’s got his tinderbox of a motel room in Winnipeg to look forward to, the air conditioner conking out just before he left to go to Brandon.

  The intense heat this summer is like the heat of that last summer he had with his mother. The same water restrictions, newscasters reporting with a heightened urgency the record amount of water being piped into the city from Shoal Lake, the sightings of funnel clouds. He recalls the swish and chug of lawn sprinklers coming to life after dark, his mother’s obvious flouting of the water restriction making him wild as he ran through the spray of water clad only in his underwear, and she watched from the veranda, the sphinx shape of her stiff hair a silhouette, her cigarette rising and the spark flaring into a pocket of light around her mouth.

  He dreamed of her last night. He awoke to the smell of the damp earth beneath the footbridge in Brandon, the algae rimming the duck pond in the park just beyond, and he remembered his mother had come to him. She was not warm and solid, but not a ghost either. She made a hollow for him with her arms and he set his forehead against her breastbone and stayed there. For how long, he can’t remember. But he does remember that when it ended she’d taken his face in her hands and pressed her mouth against his, hard, for a long moment, as though she was telling him it was important that he know something. He’d thought she meant to tell him he was forgiven for breaking into the church. For being away from the house with his father when she lost her life.

  He’s returning to his room at the Palomino, the last of the cheap motels along Pembina Highway to offer a small kitchen. When he’d heard from Pauline that Clayton had split with his family and had returned to his hometown to die of cancer, he took a bus to get to Brandon quickly, and then he was just there, a presence beside Clayton’s bed until he died. Nothing was said between them, only Clay’s eyes taking him in, and then closing.

  In the years since his business went b
ust, Joe has helped build two houses for Habitat, one in Calgary and another in a small town south of Winnipeg. Joe, a rough carpenter, clean-shaven, his hair a brush cut, a pencil stuck behind his ear. Joe, stacking food at the Food Bank, long-haired with his scruffy jeans gone through at the knees, blending in, steering clear of gratitude.

  The sun is behind him now, and the air is thick with the scent of sage. All around him are coulees, shallow bowls of sunlight set down among the humped beige land. A wilderness just beyond the highway that he’s driven so many times, failing to notice the moguls, the tall and silvery sage, ribbons of ragweed the colour of rust, stiff and tall. He’s nearing a dugout pond now, one of several he’s passed, all of them looking like mirrors set down on the earth.

  “I don’t know,” he says. Maybe if he cuts across that field he’ll eventually wind up somewhere close, or not close, to Winnipeg. I don’t know has become his new mantra, what he says to himself when he gets up in the morning. Not knowing where he’ll be tomorrow or the next year used to fill him with dread. What he feels now is a certain weightlessness, that one small step is a giant leap of possibility.

  Sometimes he takes the bus past the old house, thinking he’ll see Laurie, but so far he never has. One year, a strip of earth had been turned up along the front walk and bushes had been planted, surrounded by the fresh look of cedar bark chips, and the next year, the bushes were gone, and the sidewalk had been taken up and interlocking bricks put down in a random pattern of red and grey that looked like shadows. He was glad again that he’d given the house to her. Glad that she’d been there for his father at the end.

  He cuts away from the highway and goes down the slope of the ditch, the dried reeds slashing at his bare legs. He ducks between the strands of the fence and heads out across the field when, within moments, he’s surprised by a flock of Franklin gulls rising up all at once, the air filled with their complaints. And it comes to him then, that the dream of his mother had nothing to do with forgiveness. Rather, with her cold, hard and long kiss, she was telling him that he should know that he is alive, while she is not. He stands for a moment to watch the gulls turn across the eastern sky, and remembers seeing the doe and her yearling at the beginning and end of the day through his last winter at the Happy Traveler. Then, in spring, something told them to leave, and wherever they went, it was the right place to be.