Martha knew her way around a rocking chair. Her father knew how to build one too back sixty years earlier when he had built this one. She swayed back and forth effortlessly, like something mechanical, keeping rhythm with the eternal ticking of the mantle clock, it too having been built by her father, the master craftsman.
It was 7:30 and this evening was progressing like all the others. Her husband of fifty-two years was in the kitchen cleaning up the dinner dishes, washing each dish carefully by hand, drying them with a clean dish towel and stacking them gently in the cabinet over the dishwasher. Henry had bought the dishwasher from a Greek man who sold them from the back of a tractor trailer. He was told that it was “practically brand new.” He brought it home as a surprise for Martha on her birthday, six years earlier. Martha wanted no part of it, and had demanded that Henry return it and get his money back, but he never saw the Greek man again. Of course, the thing didn’t work. They had called a repairman to come fix it but it was missing several pieces, so there it sat taking up space. Henry liked to point out that it gave the kitchen more counter space. It was a sore subject.
Martha flipped through the paper until she found the sports page. She loved the summer months the most because she loved to follow her beloved Cleveland Indians. Henry was to blame for her obsession with baseball since it was he who had made the mistake of taking her to her first Indians game forty years ago. She sat in the left field stands and fell in love with everything. She watched the outfielders chase down fly balls. She watched other fans scream epitaphs at several Indians for swinging at pitches that were a mile out of something called the “strike-zone.” She listened to the venders barking out enticements for peanuts, popcorn, hotdogs and beer. She watched the Indians get beaten 16-2. She wouldn’t allow Henry to leave the game until the very last Indian had struck out in the bottom of the ninth. She wondered how people could be so rude as to leave in the middle of a game. She felt embarrassed for the players, so much so that, over the vehement objections of Henry, she wrote a scathing letter to the editor as soon as got home, blasting the Cleveland fans for deplorably bad manners. She became a baseball fan for life.
Martha shook her head from side to side as she read the box score. “Worst pitching I’ve ever seen,” she said to herself, “We’ve got no pitching.”
“What’s that, Martha?” Henry’s thundering voice startled her the way it always did. “I can’t hear you. I’ve got the water running.”
“It’s our pitching,” she responded, “worst I believe I’ve ever seen.”
“You say that every year. I think it’s time you got behind a different team. How about one of the teams from California? The Dodgers have plenty of pitching.”
“Why should I follow a team from California?”
“Because that’s where our two sons live and our grandchildren. Seems perfectly natural that their grandmother would start following the Dodgers.”
Martha turned the pages aimlessly for a while, then folded the paper neatly and
placed it on the coffee table beside the TV Guide. Henry walked passed her and lowered himself, like a dish, carefully into his recliner. The front of his pants were wet in a dark blue line just below his belt. Martha usually never failed to remind him that if he would wear the apron he wouldn’t get his pants wet, but tonight she let it go. He reached for his book on the coffee table. For the hundredth time he read about the trials and tribulations of Ishmael, Queequeg and Ahab. In his seventy-nine years nothing had proven as consistently delightful as Moby Dick. With each new reading he would somehow find something new. He read with the wide-eyed excitement of a school boy.
Martha watched him reading as she worked on a cross-stitch calendar she had started three years ago. As she looked at him she remembered how she once used to wonder what he would look like when he got old. Back then she believed that he would be remarkably wrinkle free, with a full head of salt and pepper hair. He would be handsome at any age, she had been convinced. She smiled to herself when she considered that she hadn’t been far off.
“You know Henry, you turned out to be a rather distinguished looking old fool, if I must say so myself.” Martha had surprised herself. She had done that a lot lately. Words would come flying out of her mouth before she had a chance to measure them and calculate their effect.
“Well, of course I did.” Henry never looked up from Herman Melville.
Then suddenly, “Are you fulfilled Henry?”
“Yes Dear. Dinner was wonderful. I couldn’t possibly eat another thing.”
“No, no, are you happy? Are you content? Do you have regrets about our lives?”
Henry took off his reading glasses, folded them and placed them teetering on the arm of his recliner. “What kind of question is that?”
“They’re perfectly natural questions for people our age to ask.”
“OK. Actually I couldn’t be happier. I’m 79 years old, reasonably healthy, married the only girl I ever loved, and I’m not in a nursing home.”
“I’m certainly not the only woman you ever loved.”
“Well, you’re the only woman I ever loved who would agree to marry me, and now that I think about it, I do have a regret…that I never got involved in real estate.”
“I just find myself thinking about these things more now than ever before. I think about everything we’ve done and I realize how much of a charmed life we’ve lived.”
“God has been good to us,” was Henry’s stock reply whenever Martha would start with one of her “have we been faithful stewards?” speeches. After a while he picked up his glasses, found his place in the book and once again launched into the deep.
The front door flew open slamming into the Ben Franklin desk sending the stained glass hurricane lamp onto the floor where it exploded into a thousand slivers of glass. He held a gun tightly with both hands fully extended in front of him. He slipped on the shattered glass as he scrambled to shut the door behind him.
“Either one of you moves, I’ll blow your goddamn head off!” His voice shook like the voice of a
child. Sweat poured from his face, his eyes were wild and lost. Henry was motionless, waiting for his heart to start beating again. He held Moby Dick in a death grip. He tried to speak but his mouth couldn’t form the words. Martha looked into the eyes of the young man before her. She felt her mouth go dry and all the color drain from her face. Her fingers and toes began to tingle. She felt the vague sensation of a thought about to be spoken. “Is there anything we can help you with young man?”
“Shut up!!” he screamed, “I swear I’ll blow your goddamn heads off!”
He was trembling. Martha noticed his wild eyes with two black lines drawn underneath, just like baseball players on sunny days. Tears and sweat had cut thin gray streams through them. His hair was jet black and hung down over his face, long and stringy. From his right earlobe hung a string of beads. He wore a denim jacket and a black t-shirt. His jeans were filthy, with huge holes in them, one of which exposed most of his right thigh. He smelled very much like a dog who had been left outside in the rain. Martha felt another thought on its way.
“Is it money you want?”
Henry cut his eyes abruptly towards her. “Why not just give him the key to the safe deposit box?!” he thought.
“That’s right, grandma!” he yelled, “I want your money, all of it.”
“I wish I could help you, but we don’t keep much money around the house.” Her voice was calm and clear.
“That’s right son.” Henry had finally found his voice and it was booming. “See, we’re senior citizens. Don’t have much need for cash. Now, we’ve got money in the checking account and plenty in savings down at the bank, but cash? No, just don’t have a need for it.”
The boy slumped back against the door and began to cry weakly, slowly lowering the gun until it hung quietly at his side.
“My name is Martha and this is my husband Henry.” Martha managed a relaxed smile. “What’s your name?”
The boy stopped crying and looked at Martha through his filthy hair as if seeing her for the first time. He lifted the gun and pointed it at her, then waved it at Henry. “You two bastards may not have any money, but I’ve got this, so shut the hell up, so I can think!”
“Such language,” Martha thought, “What perfectly repulsive language!” She began to think about his parents, trying to imagine what kind of people would allow their son to roam the streets looking and talking like this. She was suddenly overcome with compassion. The power of this strange emotion overcame her fear. She spoke with surprising energy and confidence.
“Well, if you won’t give me your name, I’ll just make one up. I’ll call you John. Are you hungry John?”
“What?” Henry asked.
“You look like you could use some supper. When was the last time you had anything to eat?”
John looked at Henry, then back at Martha, confused and terrified in equal measure, saying nothing.
Martha sprang from her rocker and confidently turned her back on them both, starting for the kitchen. “Why don’t we all go in the kitchen and I’ll throw something together. It’s easier to think on a full stomach.”
John screamed, “Wait!” He raised the gun again, pointing it at Henry. “You first, old man! Don’t try anything stupid or…”
“You’ll blow my goddamn head off, I’m guessing.” Henry was beyond fear and had lapsed into irritation.
They walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. John’s face began to relax a bit but his knuckles were still white around the handle of his shiny black gun. Martha was busy going through the refrigerator.
“I hope you like chicken because it looks like that’s all we have. How about I make you a chicken sandwich and heat up some soup?”
John was silent, staring at them both, a thousand thoughts raging through is head.
“So John,” Henry broke the awkward silence. “What do you do? I mean besides breaking and entering?”
“Nothing.” He spoke. “I don’t do anything. This is the first time I’ve ever done this.”
“Well, I suggest that you make this your last time. There’s no future in a life of crime. Besides, you’re not exactly cut out to be a criminal.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, for starters, I’ve never met anyone who would be easier to identify in a police lineup.”
Martha placed a steaming bowl of chicken soup on the table in front of John. Beside it she placed a chicken sandwich on a paper towel. She then poured lemonade into a blue plastic cup. “Help yourself.”
John instructed Martha to sit across the table with her husband where he could keep an eye on them both. He wanted their hands on the table where he could see them. Then he laid the gun a few inches away from his right hand and picked up the sandwich in one clean motion. He took a ravenous bite and swallowed it almost without chewing.
“No manners either,” thought Martha. “What kind of parents must this boy have?”
He plowed through the soup with equally ill-mannered haste, sloshing noodles and broth over the rim of the bowl. Hot chicken soup ran down his chin and formed a small pool on the table.
“I take it that the food suits you?” Henry asked loudly.
“It’s alright, if you like chicken,” John answered without looking up.
“They tell me that they serve chicken soup three days a week down at the penitentiary.”
John finally lifted his eyes from the bowl and narrowed them at Henry. He gulped down the last of the lemonade and wiped his chin on the dirty sleeve of his jacket.
“There’s lemon meringue pie,” Martha offered, feeling uncomfortable with the silence. She walked over to the refrigerator and cut a large piece of pie and placed it on a paper plate in front of him. “Do your parents know where you are John?”
“I doubt it,” he answered with his mouth full. “They think I’m in college.
“College?”
“They think I’m studying to be a big shot at school.”
“But I suppose you found out that you didn’t need to go to college to become a big shot, right?” Henry boomed. “All you needed to do was to grow out your hair, buy some pants with holes in them and rob old people of their life savings.”
John reached for his gun and pointed it between Henry’s eyes. “You’re just like my old man. You think you’ve got all the answers don’t you? What’s your answer to this gun pointed at your head Pops? You got an answer for this?”
“Life insurance.”
“John! Please don’t!” Martha pleaded. She reached out suddenly and clutched his left hand firmly with both of hers. He jumped, startled and afraid and pointed the gun at Martha.
“Talk to me John. I’ll try to understand. I’ll listen for as long as it takes. You don’t want to hurt us. I know you don’t. Will you talk to me? Please talk to me.”
John softened his grip on the gun and once again began to cry. Martha squeezed his hand and touched his shoulder gently like she had done so many times when her two sons were young and angry. She pulled her chair closer to him and they began to talk, Henry keeping a sharp eye on the gun and wondering if his wife’s Good Samaritan instinct was finally going to get them killed.
They talked softly about his parents who didn’t even know that their son had dropped out of school months ago. They had separated two weeks after he went away for his freshman year. He hadn’t talked to either of them in months. They had probably been counting the days, cutting little lines in a wall someplace every morning, waiting for him to leave. He hated them. He hated everyone now. Nobody wanted him.
Martha told him that he was wrong to think that way, that God loved him and had a plan for his life. He told her that he didn’t believe in God. There didn’t seem to be much evidence for his existence. Martha offered herself as proof. “How could I have possibly had the courage to turn my back on you in there a minute ago if it weren’t for God?” She never let his hand go. He looked straight into her eyes and the room fell silent.
Suddenly, Martha got up from the table, walked into the bedroom and returned with an El Producto cigar box. Henry’s eyes widened and his face went pale. “Martha, have you lost your mind?”
“Henry,” she answered firmly, “Remember the other night when you said that we needed a gun to keep around the house? Well, this young man has one and I think we ought to buy it from him”
Henry never took his eyes off of John while answering, “Yes, I remember using those exact words.”
John looked at Martha in disbelief, mouth ajar, waiting for an explanation.
“Look John, you need money. We need a gun. Let’s make a deal. How much did you pay for this gun?”
“I stole it.”
Henry came to life. “You hear that Martha? He says he stole it. Imagine that. I mean, what are the odds?”
Martha ignored her increasingly confrontational husband. “Well, supposing that you had bought it, how much would it have cost?”
“I don’t know. Two, three hundred dollars?”
“Henry? You think 300 is a fair price?”
“By all means, Martha. We have absolutely no reason to doubt the boy’s word.”
“Then it’s a deal!” Martha opened the box lid and pulled out a huge wad of twenty dollar bills as Henry buried his face in his hands. John watched her count out fifteen twenties and lay them on the table.
“I thought you said you didn’t have any cash in the house.”
“I didn’t…for a thief. But for a friend, I can always find some extra money.”
She extended her hand to John, waiting for him to hand over the gun. She was calm and confident. Henry watched it all happening as if in slow motion. He loved his wife with all of his heart, but it was this sort of thing that had always driven him crazy, her undying faith in the goodness of her fellow man. All he wanted to do was rush this punk and beat him to within an inch of his miserable life and if this all had happened twenty years ago he already would have. Instead he prayed under his breath that God would deliver them from her naiveté. This wasn’t Les Miserables.
John reached across the table and swept up the twenties and stuffed them in his jacket pocket, still holding firmly to the gun. Martha held her breath and hoped that nobody could hear her heart beating. Then he rose from the table, looked at them both and slowly placed the gun in Martha’s hand.
‘Thanks for the meal,” John finally spoke. “I feel much better.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” Martha suddenly felt exhausted.
“I better be going now.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’ve got a place, an apartment. It’s ok.”
“Well, if you ever need anything, I guess you know where we live.”
Henry began to seethe. Was this punk about to get away with it?
The three of them walked down a short hallway into the living room. John crushing bits of glass under his feet as he made his way to the front door.
“I’m really sorry about the lamp. Was it very old?”
“Been in the family for three generations,” Henry thundered. “It was an antique, an irreplaceable original.”
Martha looked across the room at John and smiled. “Just like you, John.”
Henry waited for a minute, then said, “I couldn’t possibly take less than three hundred dollars for it.”
John opened the door. He reached into his pocket and placed the crumpled wad of twenties on the Ben Franklin desk, then disappeared into the night, shutting the door gently behind him.
