Defiant Heart (7 page)

Now, it was time.

He went to the shed, retrieved the small collection of tools he had previously assembled, and carried them to the kitchen, where he arranged them on the counter. Then he unplugged the refrigerator and, with a small screwdriver, carefully detached the decorative ring surrounding the base of the compressor unit and pulled it away. Loosening the screws holding the unit to the cabinet, he lifted the assembly, located the terminals cover, and removed it, exposing the starter relay.

He referred briefly to the manual, and then, one by one, he disconnected the wires holding the relay to the compressor terminals, noting the locations for each. When he’d loosened each one, he gave a firm yank on the old relay, and it came away. Turning the piece over in his hand, he could see a slight deformation on the back. Upon closer inspection, the flaw appeared to be the result of copper melting into the housing. His spirits lifted.

He positioned the new part in the same location as the old, and, being careful to match the connections, attached the wires that dangled from the new unit to the compressor terminals. He then straightened, closed his eyes and said a quick prayer.

Holding his breath, he reached down and reinserted the plug into the electrical socket. After a tantalizing second, the compressor motor began to hum, there was a slight gurgling sound, and the hum settled into a steady rhythm. Jon released the air that he’d been holding in his lungs in a long, grateful expulsion.

He had done it.

He reached down once again to unplug the refrigerator, and, with a renewed sense of purpose, he methodically reassembled the compressor unit and reattached it to the top of the cabinet. When he was finished, he wiped down all of the surfaces with a soft cloth. He then plugged in the cord and stepped back.

The only evidence of his handiwork was the wonderful sound of an operating refrigerator.

#

Marvella Wilson led the young man from the market up the steps and held the door for him. He stepped past her, turned sideways and eased through the opening with a large box full of groceries.

“Just set it on the counter,” she said briskly, taking off her hat and placing it on the dining room table next to her purse. “The refrigerated items will need to go down in the basement. There’s an old ice box at the foot of the stairs.” One finger at a time, she began removing her white gloves.

“Why don’t we just put them in the refrigerator?” the young man called from the kitchen.

She made a sour face. “Unfortunately, the refrigerator is not working.” She shook out the gloves, positioned them so that the fingers were matched up, and laid them across the top of the purse. “We’ll have to make do.”

“Seems ok to me,” came the reply.

She turned and straightened. “What did you say?”

“I said it looks like it’s working fine to me.”

She walked to the kitchen door, where she saw the young man bent down in front of the refrigerator, one hand on the open door, and another inside the empty space, waving back and forth.

“It’s plenty cold.”

Eyes blinking rapidly, she stepped over to where the young man stood. She could feel the cold air escaping from the refrigerator.

“Oh my,” was all she could say.

#

While Jon’s meals with his grandmother continued to be awkward affairs, the overt hostility he had sensed when he first arrived in Jackson had faded over time, replaced by what Jon could only characterize as studied ambivalence. It seemed to Jon almost as if his grandmother was trying hard not to show any emotion. He, in turn, had learned to match her mood as a defensive mechanism. They’d essentially found an equilibrium, and neither was willing to upset the status quo. Their evening pas de deux might even have been comical, Jon reflected, if it hadn’t been so downright uncomfortable.

His grandmother still hadn’t acknowledged the money he’d been bringing home each week now for almost two months. Not that it bothered him terribly. While the cash represented a lot of money to Jon, he suspected it was not nearly enough to fully compensate her for the cost of taking him in. At least, he told himself, he had the knowledge that he’d made a reasonable attempt to lessen the financial burden he represented.

She had also never acknowledged his repair of the refrigerator. That, too, was ok with Jon. Had the matter come up in conversation, it would have necessitated addressing the question of where Jon found the tools to effect the repair. He’d not known for sure how he would handle that. Ironically, he had the sense she also did not know how to deal with it and had decided that silence on the subject was the safer, more expedient course of action.

Then, one evening late in August, to Jon’s surprise, his grandmother actually initiated a conversation.

“I understand school will be starting in two weeks,” she said as she spooned some peas onto her plate at dinner time. “Have you given any thought to how you’ll get there?”

Surprised by the question, it took Jon a moment to react.

“I guess I’ll walk. It’s not that far.”

“The school is over a mile away. You do know that, don’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s not a problem. I can walk. It’s really not that far.”

They ate in silence, and Jon assumed the conversation was over. After a couple of minutes, however, his grandmother spoke again.

“You know,” she said, “there may be an alternative. I’ll show you after dinner.”

#

When they had cleared the dishes, Jon’s grandmother motioned for him to follow her. She walked to the back door, stepped out, and went immediately to the work shed, Jon nervously in tow. At the door, she paused, and it appeared to Jon as though she was debating with herself. Then, as he had seen her do so many times, she squared her shoulders. Lifting the latch, she pulled the door open.

She flipped on the lights and stepped up onto the threshold, where she again paused. After a long moment, she strode purposefully to the back of the shed, turned around and pointed to an object resting against the pegboard wall opposite the workbench. Jon had previously noticed it, a shapeless form covered by an oilcloth, but he had not paid it much attention.

“What do you think of this?” she asked.

Jon stepped up into the shed and looked from his grandmother to the object and back. He made an inquiring gesture with his hands, as if to lift the cloth, and she nodded. He gripped the cloth with both hands and pulled it up and over.

Beneath the cover stood an old bicycle on two flat tires.

“I was thinking that, perhaps,” she said slowly, “you might be handy enough to get this old thing back in running condition.”

He could not be sure, but Jon thought he might have detected just a bit of wry humor in his grandmother’s tone. He certainly wasn’t going to take any chances.

“I’d like to try. Thank you.”

“Good,” she said with finality. “I believe you’ll find all the tools you could possibly need right here in this shed.”

#

Jon’s dad had not been particularly handy about the house. He could hang pictures and, in a pinch, unclog a drain. But most repair jobs he left to “people who know what they’re doing.” That is, with one major exception. From the time he was a child, Frank Meyer had worked on bicycles.

Some of Jon’s earliest memories were of sitting with his father, watching him repair bikes. And not just his own. It seemed that, whenever anyone in the neighborhood had a problem with a bike, it eventually made its way to the small garage behind the Meyer home, where Frank would spend hours in the evening after dinner happily tinkering.

When Jon and Sandy were old enough to ride bikes, they accompanied their father to the dump out past Great Neck, where, for a couple of dollars, the supervisor let them pick through a collection of discarded junk until they found two likely candidates and an ample collection of spare parts. Then Frank, with Jon and Sandy assisting, rebuilt both bikes. Over the next several years, with their father’s help, Jon and Sandy retrofitted their prize possessions with whatever was the new rage, from balloon tires to aerodynamic fins, from headlights to speedometers. Somewhere back on Long Island, Jon reflected sadly, were a pair of bicycles that had been the envy of Nassau County.

His grandfather’s old bike was certainly no Schwinn. It was a basic utility vehicle for a working man. Behind the seat, his grandfather had rigged a large, sturdy frame to hold a set of canvas saddlebags in which, his grandmother informed him, he had carried his tools and materials. Jon could tell the bike had been well-maintained at one time, but years of sitting untouched in the work shed through a succession of hot summers and frigid winters had taken a toll. In addition to the two flat tires, a couple of the wheel spokes had sprung, and the insidious onslaught of rust had spread to most of the metal surfaces.

Jon first disassembled the bike, separating the major components. He removed the tires and checked the tubes for leaks. One was fine, but the other had to be patched. The tires themselves were still in decent shape, so he cleaned those and set them aside. From Dahlgren’s, he ordered replacement spokes with corresponding nipples, and, when they came in, he restrung and trued the wheels. The saddlebags were too worn and frayed to be of further use, so he discarded them and their support structure.

He spent several evenings laboriously scrubbing rust from the frame and priming the freshly cleaned surfaces. At the moment, he was in the process of repacking the bearings in the rear hub. It was a very messy job.

Jon could not remember the last time he’d been so happy.

A noise at the door of the shed caused him to pause and turn. His grandmother stood just outside the opening, illuminated by the soft light spilling from the structure.

“Do you mind if I come in?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

As she planted a foot on the threshold, Jon pointed a greasy finger at the bicycle frame he had mounted on a makeshift stand just inside the door. “Careful, there are still some wet spots.”

She stepped up into the shed, holding her robe close so as not to rub against the freshly primed metal. She stood straight and squared her shoulders. With an intent expression, she slowly surveyed the interior. Jon could see it was not the look of someone viewing something new or unfamiliar. Instead, it was the frank, appraising gaze of someone who knew what she was looking at and what she was looking for.

Finally, she nodded and said softly, “This is good.” She turned in a complete circle and nodded again. “Yes. He would be pleased.”

She made as if to leave, but, with one hand on the door, she turned slightly.

“Don’t stay up too late. You need your rest.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jon said. But she was already gone.

#

On Sunday, it was ready. Jon had reassembled all the parts, adjusted the brakes and checked the wheels for proper alignment. As a final touch, he had painted the frame a glossy black, using a pint of enamel he’d found under the bench in the shed. The black made the freshly polished metal of the spokes and crankset stand out. Though it was still just a utility vehicle, it had what Jon considered a snazzy look. Without admitting it to anyone else, he was as proud of this bicycle as he had been of anything he’d ever possessed.

He wheeled the bike around the side of the house, through the wooden gate and up to the curb in front of the stoop. His grandmother had left earlier for church, and the street was deserted, so there was nobody to observe him. It didn’t matter to Jon. He didn’t know anybody anyway.

He took a deep breath and swung a leg up over the seat, planting a foot on the raised pedal. He looked in both directions, suddenly uncertain where he should go. Then, for no reason other than the fact that the bike was already pointed that way, he shifted his weight from the foot resting on the curb, stepped down hard with his other foot, and allowed the bike to roll in the direction opposite the town.

Jon was immediately engulfed in a feeling at once familiar and unfamiliar. As his speed increased, the air washed over him, and it felt like a cleansing breeze. He had the sudden, irrational feeling he was escaping, as if a great, unseen force had somehow reached down and begun stripping away cobwebs and tentacles he’d not realized had been holding him.

Before he knew it, he was on a two-lane highway, pedaling at a rapid clip, fields and pastures whizzing by on either side, and not another vehicle or person in sight. The sense of freedom and exhilaration was overwhelming.

Through the euphoria, Jon only vaguely realized he was crying.

4

When Jon awoke on the morning of the first day of school, a thin shaft of light was peeking through the edge of the window shade and had splayed itself across a portion of the wall above his bed. It carried the promise of a bright, sunny day. With a sense of nervous anticipation, he hoped the weather would be a harbinger of good things.

Though it was a Monday, and, therefore, bridge day, Jon was surprised to find that his grandmother was not in the house when he emerged from his room. Unperturbed, he served himself breakfast. When he was finished, he cleaned his dishes, retrieved a notebook and a set of pencils from his room and made his way to the work shed.

The bike was sitting as he had left it the evening before, propped against the side wall. However, as he stepped up into the shed, he noticed something different. Hanging from the handlebars was an old khaki knapsack. Curious, he opened it and saw that it contained a brown paper bag. He pulled out the bag and looked at the contents. On top, he could see a sandwich neatly wrapped in wax paper. Beneath the sandwich he found an apple, and, nestled against the apple was something Jon hadn’t seen in a long time. It was a package of one of his favorite treats, a Twinkie bar.

Jon shook his head in wonder. His grandmother had packed a lunch for him.

#

The ride to school took Jon no more than five minutes. Though his first sight of the building brought a momentary unpleasant memory of the encounter with the pickup truck, it passed quickly. The scene that confronted him this morning was completely different. What had been an empty parking lot in the rain was now a beehive of activity on a sun-splashed day.