Dropping Stones / Kingmaker SET

by Paul Cwalina

  I felt a lecture was brewing. “You really think that, Walter?”

  “Son, this country’s problems run far deeper than housing and North Korea. You can pass all the bills and legislation and treaties you want, but not a single one of them alone or combined is going to fix what’s really wrong with this country, with this society.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  Walter sat back in his chair and crossed his right leg over his left. “Son, I was born during the Great Depression and spent the better part of my childhood hearing and reading newspapers about World War II. The two most important lessons of my life came from that time. The depression taught us that things don’t mean a thing. We had less than nothing in those years. I don’t know what we would have done if we didn’t have a hen in the backyard. My mother and father and my five brothers and sisters had eggs for breakfast, eggs for lunch, and eggs for dinner for more than a year while my father couldn’t find work. As a kid I hated that hen and her eggs. But she served a purpose to us. She gave us her all. We often took her into the house just to make sure she wouldn’t wander off or be stolen. That’s how valuable she was to us. There were so many times my brother Jim and I plotted to steal food from the store, just to be able to taste something different. But we knew whatever we stole would taste bitter if we got caught and felt our father’s belt across our butts. Honestly, deep down, even if we came up with a fool-proof plan and were assured that we’d get away free and clear, we wouldn’t have gone through with it. We wouldn’t because we respected others. Not only did our parents teach us that, but so did our church. Other lives, other people mattered to us. And we held each other accountable.

  “Anyway, in the winter, we couldn’t afford the oil to heat our house, so we systematically dismantled our shed, a little at a time, and burned the wood in the fireplace. We had to move all of my father’s tools and stuff inside the house so they wouldn’t get ruined by the rain and snow. My brothers and I slept with the grass cutter, the pick, and two shovels in our bedroom. For about three or four months, our father slept in our bedroom, too, and our mother slept with my sisters so we could rent out their bedroom for some money. You would think that sleeping in a bed with your three brothers and your father would be just about the worst thing you could imagine, but I’m telling you the truth, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. We had the some of the best times of our lives those nights just talking and horsing around. Even though the stress showed on his face, my father made sure he joined in on the joking and the laughing for our sake. We had each other. We learned that we didn’t need things.”

  “Then the war came and taught us just how precious life is and how it cannot be taken for granted or disrespected. We lost our uncle on Iwo Jima. We all cried when we got the news, but part of that crying was the fear for our father, who was fighting in Europe. It was bad enough losing our mom’s brother. He was close to us. We prayed hard every night as a family for our father’s safety. There’s no way you could even fathom the joy we felt when he stepped off that train. I remember clear as day running between my brothers and sisters to get to him. We smothered the poor guy in hugs. I’m sure what he really wanted most was to feel my mom in his arms, but we couldn’t let go. We didn’t care about the house we lived in or the car my parents drove. We recognized those things for what they were: things that would eventually ended up in a landfill. We recognized that they couldn’t give us anything of real value. Only a unique life can provide such value to another unique life.”

  “In the three generations since that time, those two lessons have been turned upside down. Today, people value things and treat life as disposable. People are killing each other over twenty dollars today.”

  I tried to say something, but he continued, “Did you know that at the moment of conception, everything about your body is already determined by your DNA? You are completely unique and set in stone from that very first moment. There was never another you before and there never will be again. Isn’t that amazing? And then you grow and you experience and you learn and without you even knowing it, somewhere there is another equally unique life that you will meet some day and call your wife? And you think that meeting her was the result of something you did or somewhere you went or whatever, when it had little to do with that. You were simply meant to meet her and make your two unique lives become one even more unique life.”

  “You really loved Emily, didn’t you, Walter?”

  His eyes began to moisten. “There are things you can never put into words. How I felt about my Emily is one of them. You can’t put into words how much I miss her, either. I think one of the things that bothers me most is that she never said goodbye, or I never got the chance to say goodbye to her,” he said, his voice beginning to tremble. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his eyes. “We were planning to visit my son and his family for a few days. It’s about a six-hour drive, so we spent the day shopping, packing, and getting the car ready to leave the next morning. By eight o’clock, we were both exhausted and just sat in our chairs in the living room to watch some television before going to bed. We talked a little bit about the trip and then I turned my attention to the television. I don’t remember how long it was, maybe twenty minutes or so, when I looked over and saw that she fell asleep. I let the show finish and then got up to go to bed. I said, ‘Emily. Come on, let’s go up to bed.’ But she didn’t wake up. So I walked over to her…” He had to stop. He did his best to continue to talk through tears. “I walked over to her and tapped her arm and said, ‘Emily, come on,’ but she didn’t respond. I put my hands on her shoulders and shook her and just started yelling, ‘Emily! Emily!’ But she was already gone. Just like that. No goodbye, no final words. One minute the love of your life is talking with you and in a second, in the blink of an eye, she’s gone; never to laugh with you, again, never to sit beside you, never to accompany you anywhere…she’s just gone, never to come back, ever. This society has forgotten how precious life is, what a unique force it is. This society has no respect for life.”

  He wiped his eyes again and composed himself. “Now, you can pass all the housing bills and tax cuts and resolutions you want. Until this country learns how to respect life and let go of its obsession over material things, none of it will mean a damn thing. Like I said, you’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” I had no idea how to respond. “Well, it’s a Saturday. You should be with your woman. Get out of here,” he said and walked out the door. Walter dropped an atom bomb on my conscience and simply walked out and left me to clean up its mess. I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. I wanted to spend time with everything Walter just unloaded on me, but I looked at my phone and realized it really was time to be with Jennifer. I promised to pick her up at noon. That Saturday, just like the four previous Saturdays, Jennifer was outside the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic on Riverview with Pam, Maddie and Mark, the people who helped her that day back in January. She said she felt drawn or compelled to help other women that were going there for abortions.

  As I drove, I wrestled with Walter’s monologue and all of its potential implications. I was suddenly uneasy about the work I had in front of me, trying to imbue a political speech with significance in light of everything I had just heard. Why was my conscience so easily rocked?

  The wrestling match came to a screeching halt as I pulled up to the clinic. I had to look hard to make sure I was actually seeing what I was seeing. Jennifer was holding a sign as a man towered over her, pointing his finger in her face and screaming at her. I threw the car into park and hurriedly got out. As I made my way around the front of my car, I took of my glasses and tossed them onto the hood. I was focused like a laser on him and saw him spit on Jennifer. I didn’t see a clinic or protestors or signs. All I saw was a man threatening and spitting on the mother of my children. There was about thirty feet between me and this guy and I sprinted toward him. At the last second as I approached at full speed, he turned toward me
and gave me a perfect shot at his midsection. I lowered my head and tucked my right shoulder and delivered a textbook open-field tackle. I landed on top of him as we hit the ground. I immediately sat up on his chest and bloodied his nose and mouth with two quick punches. As I wound up to deliver a third, I felt two large arms wrap around me and pick me up off the guy, much like a parent scooping an infant off of a floor. Fulfilling my role, I was flailing my arms and yelling at whoever was holding me from behind. The arms were Mark’s, and he turned and set me down, facing away from the man, who was starting to get up from the ground. I turned and pushed Mark. “Get off me! Let me go!” I yelled. “I’m going to rip his lungs out!”

  Mark put his massive hand on my chest and pushed me back against the pole of a ‘no parking’ sign. “No!” he shouted. “We don’t do that! We preach the Word and that is all.”

  The man finally spoke, “See? You guys are nothing but a bunch of freaks. Nothing but violent, out-of-control nutcases. Get a life!”

  “Come on, you coward,” I shouted and tried to get around Mark. He simply held me in place.

  Jennifer came over and placed her hand on my chest. “Sweetheart, I’m okay. I’m all right. Calm down.” She moved her hand to my face and looked me in the eye. “I’m alright.”

  I turned back toward the guy, as he started to walk away. “You better walk away! If I ever catch you around her again, I’ll…”

  “Enough!” Mark yelled to stop me from completing the threat. “The gospel of Jesus Christ is more powerful than any punch you can throw.”

  “Yeah, listen to your bodyguard, you freak,” the man yelled back.

  “Sir,” Mark said to the man way too calmly. “You came here to murder your child. You hired someone who is nothing more than a hit man to abuse your wife’s body and kill your child. Instead of fighting this man, go in there and fight for your family.” In response, the man just unloaded a long string of expletives, threats and hand gestures as he walked toward the clinic doors.

  “Are you calm now? Can I trust you if I let you go?” Mark asked me.

  I relaxed my body and said to the ground, “Yeah, I’m fine.” The adrenaline was still coursing through me as I sat down on the curb and put my face into my hands. Jennifer put her hands on my shoulders. “Are you okay?” she asked softly.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me,” I said without looking at her. I sat there for a couple minutes and tried to calm down.

  “Come on,” Jennifer said cheerfully to lighten the mood. “We’re supposed to go shopping for cribs. We can’t put that off any longer.”

  I got up and shook Mark’s hand. “I’m sorry. Thank you,” I said.

  Jennifer and I left and went to a baby furniture store in a strip mall a few miles from the abortion clinic. Throughout the drive, I caught Jennifer looking at me several times. That wasn’t like her and I didn’t know how to respond, so I just let it pass. We arrived at the store and looked around only for a few minutes, as she liked one of the first cribs she saw. We bought two and headed back to her place.

  We had decided that we would buy a new, neutral home after we got married to save ourselves from dealing with the ghosts of our pasts and to have a place we could each call our own. We didn’t want to take the chance of having both of our homes sold so late in her pregnancy, so I was more than happy to offer to sell mine and live in hers until we found our own place. It was better that I live with one ghost than she with too many of mine.

  It was a brutally hot day as I made my way up the stairs to the nursery, unpacked the first box, and arranged its contents on the floor. I was given the perfect hand-eye coordination to write speeches and be a mayor, not put together cribs or anything else for that matter, no matter how simple the box promised it would be. The whole experience of putting together the first crib was frustrating and miserable. I made it known through my slamming and verbal assaults on the inanimate objects that were confounding and mocking me. Jennifer came in as I finally finished assembling the first crib. The sweat was pouring out of me, so I lifted my shirt to wipe my face.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  “It’s beautiful, sweetheart,” she said from the doorway. “Thank you.”

  “Glad you like it. Now, onto the other one,” I said and started ripping open the other box. “Hopefully, this one will go smoother.”

  “I’ll be back in a couple minutes,” she said and went back downstairs.

  I was kneeling on the floor and putting the final touches on the second crib when I noticed from the corner of my eye a large glass of lemonade hovering near my head. “Here, you must be thirsty,” she said softly.

  I stopped what I was doing, turned toward her, and reached for the glass. It was nothing more than a simple glass of lemonade, but it wasn’t pink and Jennifer didn’t drink lemonade. It meant that at some point during the last few days, someone in this world was thinking of me. And it wasn’t in exchange for a political favor. There was nothing I had to do in return.

  She was barefoot and wearing nothing but a simple short, yellow sundress as she looked around at the room and smiled. I took a long sip. I was eye level with her thighs and noticed something on her right thigh. “Is that a tattoo?” I asked, reaching for her leg.

  “Ugh. Don’t remind me,” she said looking down. “Spring Break, senior year. Stupid.”

  “A crown? Why a crown?” I asked as I looked at the tiny artwork.

  “It was a joke. My friends called me a princess and, well, a pitcher of margaritas later… So embarrassing. You didn’t see it that night?”

  “No. Not until just now.” I held her leg a couple seconds more, then stood up and accidentally brushed up against her. Our eyes met and we held the gaze for an extended moment. I was ready to turn away from it, but she held it unexpectedly.

  She started to walk back out of the room, but then she turned around at the doorway and just looked at me. She bit her lip and gave me the look that every man longs to see. It was that look that said the woman he longed for longed for him. It was the look that drives a man out of bed every morning and gives him the will to suffer through the most mundane of the daily tasks of his job. It’s the look that doesn’t just say ‘you can have me’, but whispers ‘I want you’.

  She walked toward me and pushed the glass of lemonade out of my hand, sending it spilling and falling to the floor. She took my hand and wrapped my arm around her and then pulled my head down and kissed me hard. I kissed her back just as hard and passionately. She lifted her leg and wrapped it around mine. Even with the babies coming between us, we still managed to press every available inch of bodies against each other.

  I broke the kiss and tried to speak through my heavy breathing. “You said you wanted to wait,” I said, looking into her eyes.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  We kissed hard again and I pushed her up against the wall. I tried to figure out where to place my hands while she twisted my hair in her fingers. My blood was boiling as I broke the kiss and moved to her neck.

  “Let’s go to my bedroom,” she said breathlessly.

  I stopped kissing her neck and looked at her to make sure she really wanted to go through with it. We were both breathing heavy as she nodded her head. Then I put my hands on her shoulders and said, “No.”

  “It’s okay, really,” she said, trying to convince me.

  “No. You’re going to regret it and I don’t want to do that to you.”

  She looked into my eyes then put her arms around me and started crying. Then she whispered in my ear, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” After a couple more breaths, she said softly, “I love you.”

  I pulled away, cupped her face in my hands, and looked into her eyes. “I love you.” We kissed, again, before I broke it and said, “I should go. I’ll pick you up in the morning for church.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I woke exceedingly groggy on that Monday morning. The stress of not only composing the speech, but of meetin
g Ed’s demand for a draft by that Friday as well had me rattled and I didn’t fall asleep until after three in the morning. I got ready in a haze, fighting against the fatigue in my arms and legs as I drove to the office. I walked in and set my laptop on the desk, and made my way to the coffee maker. There was no coffee made. Oh, man…of all days to forget the coffee, Walter…

  I walked back to my computer and turned it on. While it warmed up, I made my way to the car and began driving to the nearest doughnut shop for a coffee. In my head, I was working on a new intro to the speech as I made the first two turns. At the next intersection, I hit my brakes hard. I squealed my tires through a U-turn to head back to the office. I was doing fifty on quiet residential streets, slowing down only to turn back into Walter’s driveway.