Jolt

by Roberta M. Roy

  Natalie’s family seemed happy with its new arrangements. With Natalie’s sister and niece back in Bain and her father able to be cared for at home, her parents reported enjoying grand-parenting while Natalie’s sister felt both less alone and more free. She even had a new beau whom she had met at the synagogue they now attended in Bain. And there Natalie’s niece was preparing for her bat mitzfa.

  Thaw had been asked to teach again as an adjunct at Nick-Sue, and his show at the Petite Gallerie had gone well. The backroom exhibit had drawn the attention of the university, which had then invited Thaw to have an exhibition of only the forced-emigrant-inspired paintings. And Thaw was asked to make a presentation at the opening to talk about their background and how he came to paint them.

  Dody’s wife had about had it with Dody’s helping the Newcomers and never being available to her. Then just as she was about to let him have it, he did an about-face and became once more pleasantly available to her, making good conversations with her two daughters and the married one’s husband when she had them over for dinner. He also agreed to take his two young grandchildren for the weekend as long as he was promised buckwheat cakes for Sunday breakfast. And as once he had done when they were first married, he even helped her with the dishes. And sometimes she heard him whistling softly to himself. If his wife didn’t know better she’d’ve thought he was up to no good. But whatever Dody’s faults were, never could it be said he ever hid what he was involved in or sneaked to do a mean thing. No, that was not her Dody. Maybe he was just glad to be home again. Helping those people settle in had taken a bit out of everyone in the community. Even his wife had to work harder as the size of her Sunday school class had doubled . . . although she did find the new children alert and interested. And quite unafraid to voice their opinions! If Dody had met any of them, she was sure he would have liked them. Dody always preferred someone who was assertive to someone who hung back and remained silent or was afraid or taciturn.

  Granny had become a permanent member of Martha’s house. However as Manfred was back from the hospital and no less allergic to cats than ever, her cat was confined again to the cellar. But most incredibly, both Miriam and Elaine had become pregnant, the former at age forty and the latter for a second time by Manfred. Rozlyn and Juanita loved to pat both bellies and listened eagerly for heartbeats from within. Martha continued to call on Dody when she needed help with minor repairs and touch-ups. And although he had never as much as accepted more than a glass of water in her house, when asked on a day when Thaw and Natalie were over he agreed to lunch with what he jokingly called “Martha’s Mix.” And as he had arrived at a time when Jan and Elaine were off to Bain to visit the young woman’s gynecologist, there was room at the table for all. Dody ate quickly and, for him, remained amazingly quiet, mostly talking and joking with Granny and the two girls and sometimes engaging in conversation with Jorge. Having finished his lunch he excused himself, noting he had a lot of work to do. His last words as he headed out the door were, “Bye, all.”

  With Natalie’s sister and niece back in Bain and Lem and Alba married, they and the children settled in at Lem’s place and Lem, with the help of Dody, set to work building on a two-room addition to his house. This resulted in occasional meetings between Dody and Thaw. Lem liked to solicit Thaw’s opinions on such things as window sizes and placement and general design, and Dody seemed to have increasingly less difficulty adding his two cents in any discussion.

  Despite their age difference, Alba transitioned easily into role of new wife…mostly because she liked Lem and believed her children could benefit from such a kindly father figure. Hers was no burning passion, but within her, a small candle flickered ever steadily and gradually larger.

  Lem was easy on her, never pressing her for passionate avowals of love…especially as he continued to remind himself that in some way she probably was still in mourning for her first husband, whom she had dearly loved. Entering the kitchen to find Alba cooking or doing dishes and humming or singing to herself in Spanish brought Lem great pleasure. And as at his last medical exam his doctor had given him a clean bill of health, he told himself all that he had with Alba was already more than he had ever hoped for…and that included the children, each of whom he found sweet and considerate.

  SEVEN 2021:

  A New Year and Moving On

  Moving on meant different things to different people.

  For many of those who had been working-class renters, the prospect of the prefabricated houses rumored to soon be erected by the government, Habitat for Humanity, and donor local carpenters and volunteers, was looked upon with anticipation. Finally a chance to own a place of their own, a place to really put down roots. Still, these tattered dreamers would have to tough it out for now in shanties or overcrowded temporary-housing. Among them were the pregnant Miriam, Jorge, Juanita, and Rozlyn.

  Jorge was a mason, and when the explosion at Magdum Heights occurred, luck had it that he was facing north, talking with a fellow laborer regarding the layout of a bend in the wall on which they were working. There, his shorter, more muscular compatriot, glimpsing the sudden bright glare behind Jorge and not sure that it was not in the immediate area, had slapped his two hands on Jorge’s shoulders…which had been protected only by the narrow shoulder bands of his white undershirt. He pulled the two of them down and sideways with Jorge forced toward the angle formed by the ground and the stone wall against which they both landed in heap. However, they fell into the protection of the wall’s rock, and more importantly, on its shadowed side.

  Together they lay there awaiting a second and nearer explosion. When none came after ten minutes or so, they had risen together to peek over the wall’s edge. There they had been briefly transfixed by the view of smoke billowing in the distance—how far away they could not guess. Erroneously they concluded that it was as close as mile or two. Then, noting that the wind was in a northerly direction, they had run for their truck and headed northward toward their homes. But they had been south of Ariana and closer to one Dirty Bomb or another and found themselves prevented from reaching the main road north by long lines of bumper to bumper cars and trucks that reached into even the secondary roads. That being the case, they had threaded their way first back across the James River and north along familiar, less glutted back roads until at last they could ride with relative freedom, recrossing the James at a point closer to Bain. By then Jorge had become aware of the burning sensation across his shoulders and the back of his arms, and his friend, who was riding beside him in the passenger seat, vision-less except for a white blur, could not tell him whether or not there were blisters across his, Jorge’s, back. Straining as far as he could to see his back better, Jorge observed a severe redness that looked like sunburn across his shoulders and the back of his arms, and while it suggested he might have been rather badly burned, it appeared not to be to the point of blistering. Still he was concerned; not only for himself, but for his Columbian companion’s vision. He suggested that instead of heading home, they proceed to the nearest hospital. His friend agreed to the plan, but on arrival, they found the hospital to be overrun with injured and panicked people and therefore chose to continue northward to the medical center in Bain. There they were both admitted, the one for treatment of his eyes and the other for radiation burns.

  As it turned out they had been some thirty-five miles from ground zero and the rapid response of Jorge’s Columbian co-worker, Luis, made all the difference for both of them. Jorge’s larger body, while it had not blocked his buddy’s view of the blazing white sky, had blocked much of the direct glare from reaching his buddy’s exposed hands and face, and the fall behind the wall had protected both men from the worst of the burst’s glare with the result that the co-worker’s sight was only temporarily lost and began to restore within forty-eight hours. As for the burns on Jorge’s back, they healed well, leaving only the tattoo of his white shirt against his blackened shoulders.

  Once out of the hospital, the two of them set
out to locate Miriam, Juanita and Rozlyn. But Miriam had understood that fallout was coming, so they had left all their belongings, including the family cat and fled. On their way out, Miriam had picked up her purse, into which she threw the roll of bills that represented all her life savings. She also grabbed some clean underpants for herself and her girls, which she jammed into the purse beside the bills. From home they had hurried on foot to a nearby train station where they bought what may well have been the last three tickets sold that day to a place they said was some one hundred and fifty miles north and on a lake shore. It was called Ellensville.

  So when Miriam, jubilant because the Red Cross had reunited her with the one love of her life and thrilled with his arrival, found him to be a tattooed husband with a formerly blind but now fully recuperated friend, she could only through tear-filled eyes, gratefully and laughingly accept the darkened back of his shoulders and arms and suggest that at least that was one half of an undershirt she would never have to hang out to dry again. Then as Martha said one more or less was all the same to her, Rozlyn and Juanita had moved their bunk beds to the living room near Granny and Jorge moved into the double bed with Miriam, thereafter providing a strong and supportive hand in any heavy work in the house. And as at that particular time, all the shelters had been maxed out, they moved his friend into a bed in the community hospital which had been vacated by a man whose radiation sickness had become unpredictably severe and which had forced his removal to a real hospital.

  And under the blankets at night Jorge and Miriam began to formulate plans for him to build them a house…if they could but locate a plot of available land nearby for which Jorge might exchange masonry work for the deed to the property. Both were convinced that this would be possible as the barter system seemed to be used increasingly, even among those who lived in larger private homes with numerous acres of land, much of which had not been farmed in a number of years.

  But for others with more means, moving on meant buying a plot and putting up a house designed for them by a well-known architect, usually, if possible, far from Ellensville. A few of the lucky with some, but not excessive, financial resources, found the means to start building quite early, but while a great many were looking for work, good help was hard to find and getting materials to build generally meant buying what one needed from the local lumber yard, if and when the materials became available.

  But then there were those Newcomers for whom moving on at best became simply a matter of waiting until somehow some distant relative got word of their plight and invited them to come and live with them until they could get on their feet again. For this latter group, they left by bus or train, or if they had one, by car—unless of course, as was the case for a small percentage of them, someone came to pick them up or arranged for plane tickets to be ready for them if they could get a ride to the Bixby air strip and thence to Hartsville or Bain airports and then off to almost any one of the earth’s four corners.

  Morning sun lighted the room. Natalie woke and stretched languidly. A smile played about the corners of her lips. Rolling over, she raised her head onto the palm of her hand and leaned on her elbow, silently watching Thaw below. He had been up since the crack of dawn. Once again he had become dedicated to his painting. But his pictures were no longer of natures’s wonders. Nor were they personal portraits. Now they continued to catalogue scenes he had witnessed over the last year in Locklee and Ellensville. Today he was stroking away at what at first look seemed surrealistic. It was a scene involving a naked man and a fully-clothed woman holding the hand of child. They were crossing a paved road in opposite directions. Behind them a lake stretched while all around them, in trees and bushes and in small clumps here and there on the side of the road, hung and lay—as if tossed by some irreverent wind seeking to challenge nature with some new form of ill patterned, inexplicable decoration—various articles of miscellaneous clothing. Natalie’s eyes moved from the painting to Thaw’s tied-back hair and then followed its line down his back toward his waist and finally to his two firmly planted feet.

  Long ago Natalie had given up expecting Thaw to look at her as he painted. His focus was on the surprising things that radiated from his brain to channel themselves outward through paint and sometimes in words. Like the time he declared he thought that the bear clawing had actually helped to make him a better painter. Something about how it had increased his determination to paint as well as his depth of understanding for the interplay between man and nature and the effect of suffering and healing on the human spirit or some other such gibberish.

  “Mornin’, Thaw.”

  “Mornin’, Nat.” Thaw did not turn his head, but continued to daub and paint. “I love ya, Nat.”

  Natalie’s body flooded with a thrill of happiness. “My apartment lease is up, Thaw.”

  “Yah.”

  “Well, I have to decide whether or not to renew it.”

  “So what’s to decide?” Thaw’s melody caught the mildly Yiddish flavor that Natalie’s parents often evidenced.

  Natalie smiled at its sound. “Whether or not to renew my lease option now that my dad is better and my sister has left it.”

  “What do you want a lease for?”

  “Well, so I know where I live.”

  “Natalie, you live here. You’ve been living here for almost a year now. This is where you live.”

  “I know, Thaw. But we have never really ever talked about me giving up my apartment.”

  “What is there to talk about?”

  “My living here.”

  Thaw continued to paint. His voice was firm and even. “Natalie. You live here. I want you here. You belong here. You don’t even work in Bain anymore. Why would you want to renew your lease?”

  Natalie smiled at the back of Thaw’s head and lay back down.

  Given that Natalie’s sister and her daughter had moved to a larger apartment in Bain which they shared with Natalie’s parents until their dad was stable, Natalie’s apartment was no longer needed for backup for the sister and niece. And Natalie had to admit that she was happier here with Thaw than she could ever remember having been before in her adult life. So why not at least stay in the Ellensville area? Hadn’t her involvement and skill in handling the outcrop of recent and current community issues sat well with residents of the Ellensville? And in return for her strong commitment to the community, hadn’t she been offered a position in the Lochlee County planning department? And hadn’t they now invited her to go full-time?

  So if she was to stay in this area, why not stay with Thaw? Things seemed to be going well between them. They had so much to talk about regarding community needs. Their intimate times were relaxed and spontaneous. Natalie, while active and energetic, felt more relaxed and spontaneous than she had in Bain. And who knew? Without her friends always kidding her about the elusive Thaw and her having to schlepp up to see him if she wanted his company, and what with Thaw (from Natalie’s point of view) becoming each day more the mature and productive man she wanted, why not stick with him? There didn’t seem to be much better out there. And if truth were to be told, she loved being so prized by Thaw, sharing his pain and happiness, his concerns and worries, his hopes and dreams.

  But Thaw had more to say on the subject. “Anyway, given the cut in pay you’ve had, I’ve been thinking, Nat. Wouldn’t it be better if we just decided to pool our monies and live as man and wife?”

  “And that’s not what we’re already doing?”

  Thaw leaned into the picture more closely. He was working on some small detail in a blue shirt that was flying in the breeze between the trees. “Well, I was thinking more along the lines of us getting married.”

  Natalie shook her head, smiled and closed her eyes. Then she said with an abruptness unusual to her, “Theodore Horatio Alexander Wamp, are you asking me to marry you?”

  “Somethin’ like that.”

  “Oh, yeah…Well then, you just turn around right this minute and get your sweet ass up here before you chang
e your mind and gather sufficient strength to bolt. I need to think about this before we go looking for the Town Justice. And I need you to help me.”

  Natalie watched as Thaw silently and carefully cleaned his brush and placed it on the easel ledge and moved to the sink where he slowly but thoroughly washed his hands, after which he carefully rubbed hand cream into them. At that point he turned, gleamed a major smile up toward Natalie, and with several long strides crossed the room, grabbed the railing along the stairs to the loft, took the stairs two at a time, and on reaching the top step began to loosen his clothes, first the buttons on his shirt, which he pulled off and dropped on the floor, after which he loosened his pants.

  “You gonna meet me half way, or not?” he asked, at which point Natalie darted up from the bed and into his arms as the two of them fell giggling and laughing in a heap on floor, their laughter quickly deteriorating into rapid-fire kissing and then into a slow love-making in which each facilitated the other and punctuated the mutual progress of their passion with tender terms of endearment that ranged from “I love you,” to “Darling,” to “I love you madly…forever,” to sweet silence, gentle sighs and finally the hum of gentle mutual pleasure.

  And as neither of them ever had said no, although neither of them had ever said yes, as events would have it, the next day Thaw drove Natalie to the Justice of the Peace and the two of them took out a marriage license for which Natalie insisted she pay half.

  So not too many months after Lem and Alba were married in a quiet church ceremony, Natalie and Thaw married even more quietly before the Justice of the Peace with Lem and Natalie’s sister as witnesses. Lem’s sister and children had settled back in their own home and Alba and her children seemed content and calm with Lem. Through these major life changes they all seemed to drift rather seamlessly…the rituals reinforcing the commitments, but the fabric of the life staying pretty much the same. Thaw made plans for a fall showing at La Petite Gallerie, and after some discussion, Rory again agreed to include some of Thaw’s newer heart-rending, contrast-laden pictures of sick and dying, or well and optimistic refugees as they lived in and around the village and shanty town. But Rory remained unmovable in his insistence that they had to be displayed in the smaller back room, separate from Thaw’s earlier, color-laden and elegantly vital and life filled paintings. In that way people could wander in if they were so inclined. Or if they were not, they could just avoid them. According to Rory, the clientele he served were used to better times and preferred the brighter side of life.