joe

Joe had asked the landlady, Mrs. Klowetzyk, to iron his nicest white shirt the day before so that when he woke at about a quarter to five in the morning it would be hanging on the oak bannister in the hall. He had a very big evening ahead. As he registered this thought, a tiny phosphorescent spark flashed, crescent-shaped, in the corner of one of his deep black eyes and burned off slowly. He lived on the rickety third floor of the old 1910 farmhouse, although in point of fact it was the attic. It had been dry-walled some time before he moved in some five years ago, and a wash of eggshell enamel adequately applied. There was a simple round mirror mounted on the interior wall for combing the few gray wisps across his broad forehead, and he had nailed his grandmother’s Rosy Cross above the rollaway bed opposite. There really wasn’t anywhere for the bed to roll, he thought, being wedged between the window and the utilitarian stairwell dropping down from the center of the room. A naked lamp sat on an armless Shaker chair to aide in reading Bible verse before his dreamless sleep. He had moved into the Klowetzyk’s after his mother had long overstayed her welcome in the world, and quietly slipped into the next. The meager offerings of his part-time postal route alone could not afford the mortgage on his childhood home.

There was a faint briny smell of paint that mixed with the must of the attic still hiding behind the plasterboard that pleased Joe. On Sunday afternoons after church he sometimes liked to sprawl on the bed, close his eyes, breathe in, and transport himself back to a memory of perpetual springtime in his grandfather’s workshop. It was a freestanding, backyard boy’s funhouse. Mowers and bicycles and axes and barber signs and spare tires and saw tables and sleighs and Frigid-Aires seemed to all bubble up like chunks of lava, anchored only by a giant handmade wooden worktable. This table, seemingly built millennia before, was worn like sandstone under an ancient river, with smooth crevices running throughout the surface, revealing years of cigarette butts and broken nails, and birdhouses painted and repainted; things made and unmade. Stubbed tobacco and beer bottles, and half empty cans of rust and house paint, and motor oil all swirled together to form the ineffable scent of Joe’s youth. Joe’s grandfather would stay here on Sundays when he and his family would go to church. At the time Joe couldn’t understand. This was the church his grandfather built to escape. Or to feel useful. Or to be at peace for a few hours.

Remembering the evening ahead, Joe fumbled with his life-heavy limbs, still half asleep, down the thin staircase. His size 11 feet were easily size 11 and a half counting the drill bit-hard yellow nails fighting to escape his shoe leather. If he were less pious or more vain he would think it God’s only mission on Earth to prevent him from losing grasp of those short old stairs, to avoid sending him to a premature Rapture. Once at the bottom he opened the door to a lazy gust of air intent on upsetting the stale calm of his quarters.
“Oh Jesus, Joe, you gave me a fright!” Mrs. Klowetzyk caught her breath and `her tongue. “Oh, Joe, I’m sorry! I must stop taking His name in vain. Lord, forgive me.”
“Of course, Mrs. Klowetzyk. He knows you’re a saint.” She was. He smiled enough to put her at ease. Edna and Charles Klowetzyk were always very kind to Joe. When his mother was still breathing, but in no sense living, they would take turns to look in on her and give her her pills, or change her bedclothes, if need be, so that Joe could complete his postal rounds by their appointed time, and fulfill his obligations to the church. And they had always fed him roasts and casserole like he was a member of the family. He unhooked the stiff shirt, handing her the hanger. “I have a date tonight.” With that, Joe turned back up, Mrs. K hooked her little toe on a staircase slat, dropped her fresh towels down the center of the stairwell, and narrowly avoided toppling end over end.

******

Joe cleared his throat. He did not want to scrape out his first few words in front of Janey. His gaze caught her at the door, freshly permed auburn curls and a bright yellow dress just for him! His eyes went ablaze, as if she were a sunbeam floating through the ambient dust of the murky old diner. In the flash he heard his mother’s voice telling him that he was worthy, and if he was worthy the Lord would send him his angel just so long as he was patient and kept a virtuous heart. He felt flushed with the Blood. He felt blessed and gave silent praise to the Lord for bringing her to him, and to this inadequate place. Beaming as hard as he could, he tried to shine back at her, but his necktie was knotted too tight, and the blood pumping to his brain suddenly had nowhere to go. Everything went hazy for a moment. All of a sudden, in rushed some kind of giant yellow airship fighting to stay aloft, its thrusters blazing as it screeched down into an endless, chafing skid atop a vinyl runway. He dug his fingernails under his kneecaps to let a clarifying breath in.
Joe met Janey the very first day his route was transferred across town. She was tending to the azaleas in her front yard with the zeal of Mother Teresa ministering to a village of lost souls. Her hands were soft and round and brown with the noble work of the Earth. As he entered her gate, she yanked up a patch of dead impatiens and laid them gently in a pile. This act made Joe’s eyes swell with tears. He awkwardly shielded them with a coupon flyer, which led her to keep a suspicious eye on him for weeks. It took him months of ruminations about the weather, and prognoses for young plantings before God gave him the courage to ask her to dinner. Praise be, he thought.
There she was again. In the flesh. Just for him. Joe was helpless but to watch as her cherubic fingers crumpled some tissue that had muted the sparkle from her cheeks, and fox-trotted over to the sugar caddy to whisk away a few blushing pink packets of sweetener for an intimate night at home. Joe’s bones were chains. His tongue was dead weight.
“Lovely architecture, this old diner, huhn?” she tweeted.
The song of a sparrow! His head was bobbing, yet he hadn’t felt it start, nor had he the power to stop it. It just kind of embarrassed itself after a moment or two and softly puttered out.
Some words scratched at the back of his throat. He hadn’t a moment to analyze them before-
“I…I…If it’s not out of line for me to ask, I’ve been curious as to the contents of that urgent package you receive from France each month. I know it’s highly unprofessional as an officer of the Post, but I figured since you agreed to dinner…?”
Oh, now he’d done it. Such a personal question for a lady. Who did he think he was, sitting here snooping? He should mind his own and offer up the best he could of himself. Perhaps a mention of the church choir on Tuesday nights? What if she was not a believer, though? Tsk! How could he even have such a thought?
“Do you know the Tuileries?” she asked.
“I don’t think I do, no. Sounds like a Doo-Wop group though, no? I love Doo-Wop!” The music sure sounded pretty, but he was not convinced it wasn’t a lure of the Devil.
“No no no! The Tuileries is a big beautiful garden in Paris, France. A king designed it, and it has a gorgeous glass palace and stone sculptures and oodles and oodles of wonderful flowers of all kinds and they lead right up to the Louvre Museum! I receive a fine French horticulture magazine each month. It’s called Bloom, which I don’t think is a French word, which is strange because it’s all in French, which I don’t understand, of course, but I just adore the glorious pictures, you see, and there is just something so exotic about the French language in print, don’t you think?”
Joe was elsewhere, trying to remember whether to come in on the high C or the high D in the motet for the church choir rehearsal this Tuesday. He thought he must not forget to stop in and see the deacon before his rounds tomorrow or else he would be unprepared.

******

Before rehearsal began, Joe found himself sitting in the back of St. Ann’s. This was always his spiritual home. His parents were married here. He was baptized in Christ here. His father was eulogized here. His mother followed much later. They say St. Ann was the grandmother of Jesus. Nobody really knows too much about her. Annie was also the name of Joe’s Nana. He had never known her. He had always loved when his mother told him this as a child.
He was in a pew just to the front of the vestibule that held the confessionals. His features were ragged with sleeplessness. His black eyes sunk deeper than usual. He wanted to kneel, but the size and stiffness of his legs prevented it. So he sat with penitence and soaked in the dark greens and browns and golds of his faith. The air was thick with Roman incense from the late afternoon mass. It warmed the cavity between his eyes, but he was still uneasy. He scratched his thumbnail at a notch in the pew in front of him.
“Hello, Joe. You know you’re early. Choir doesn’t rehearse for another hour. The deacon’s not even here yet.”
It was Father Jeremy. He was thirty years Joe’s junior, but Joe did not feel the same discomfort with him as with most young people. He had a poof of reddish-brown hair and a face made up almost entirely of freckles. They always appeared to scatter when he smiled at Joe, and this in turn made Joe reciprocate.
“Oh I know, Father. I was just… are you hearing confession today?”
The priest was surely in the middle of something, but Joe saw the freckles scatter.
“Of course, Joe. Come on over.”
Joe climbed into the rosewood and velvet box and pulled back the heavy curtain behind him. He slid the little window open letting the dim bulb light from Father Jeremy’s side in through the thin screen. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been four days since my last confession.”
“Four days? You do know God only requires this once a week. He’s got a full schedule as it is, Joe.”
“Father. The Lord sent me this woman, and I was not ready to receive.” Tears started streaming into the many cracks around Joe’s eyes. He muffled a sob under his windbreaker.
“Easy, Joe. Everything’s all right. Help me to understand your problem.”
Joe regained control and leaned back into the darkness of the booth.
“Take a moment. Just relax. Breathe. Okay? Now…take your time, and tell me what I can do, okay?” Joe saw freckles bouncing against the screen and a nervous laugh escaped him.
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say to them. To her.”
Joe waited for an answer.
“It’s not a sin to be shy, Joe.”
There was a holy silence throughout the church. The priest sat attentive until Joe decided to exhale.
“Come by the rectory tomorrow, Joe. We can have dinner. We can talk. In comfortable chairs. Some things are not meant to be handled so seriously. How does that sound?”
Joe couldn’t move his lips or his arms or his legs. They seemed to him to have been paralyzed for hours. He had not noticed when his head started bobbing at all. He hadn’t the power to stop it. It just kind of embarrassed itself after a moment or two, and softly puttered out.