Waiting for Joe (29 page)

“And you’re wearing your dentures.”

“Damn right, I am. So, you must be in BC now.”

“Yes, I’m in Vancouver.” Joe waits for him to ask when he’ll be back. In several weeks, he had promised. And then you’ll come home. If Alfred should ask, he’ll have to tell him the truth. I don’t know when I’ll be home. It would finish Alfred to know about the house. He listens to the silence, a hollow echoing sound. I want to go home, he imagines Alfred will say again.

“Be sure and give Laurie a hello from me,” Alfred says.

“I will.”

Again there’s a silence. And for a moment Joe thinks his father has set down the phone and forgotten they were having a conversation, as he sometimes does.

“Say, Joe. They took away my chair,” Alfred says.

“Your what?”

“My chair. They took it. It’s gone. I guess that means there’ll be no more trips to the moon.”

Joe winces at what he takes to be a moment of senility. “I’m in Vancouver now, Dad. I’ll call again tomorrow. Likely in the morning.”

“You what?”

“I’m going to call you tomorrow,” Joe repeats.

The silence is once again long. Dad, Joe thinks. The word embodies so much more than what it distinguishes Alfred as being. To Joe it has become the age-pebbled texture of his father’s skin, his body a fusty narrow closet filled with forgotten things. The word,
Dad
, has always released a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. From the moment he’d opened his eyes, Alfred had been his father, and he guesses that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But his father had been a bachelor for almost as many years as he’d been his father and Joe regrets now not having been interested enough to want to know, who are you?

“I love you, Joe.”

“So do I,” Joe says. “I meant, you, that is. I meant to say that I love you too.”

“Well, good. At least we got that straight,” Alfred says.

It has stopped raining and as Joe sits across from Maryanne and Ken at the table over the remains of dinner, the setting sun lights the water beyond the window where a ferry plies toward the terminal at Horseshoe Bay. If it weren’t for the trail of its wake, it would look to be standing still. The view, the Lexus in the four-car garage, the late model
Land Cruiser and Jaguar, how in hell do they afford this? Joe wonders.

He looks about the room again, at the white loveseats at the far end of it, arranged around a large square glass table; the watercolours on the walls are at odds with the vivid curios on side tables and lined up on shelves, the objects they’d brought back from countries such as Russia, Turkey and Israel, where they’d gone with TV crews to record the stories of born-again Christians.

“Hey Joe, I’ve gotta say that despite what you’ve been through, you look great,” Pastor Ken says, as though Joe, clean-shaven and wearing the clothes Maryanne left out for him, is in need of reassurance. Ken swirls the last of his white wine in his glass, looking into it, preparing his thoughts. Getting ready to speak, Joe thinks.

Ken is florid, thick in the neck and gone completely grey, although his hair still shines; he wears it slightly long and in an attractive way. It occurs to Joe that maybe it, too, is a wig. He looks fit though, judging from the swell of pectorals beneath his polo shirt.

Throughout dinner neither one strayed near the reason why he might have come, or why Laurie wasn’t with him; rather they gave him a lengthy account of their recent trip to Ukraine where there was an underground church of born-again Christians, living in the spirit. Technology was taking the gospel to countries farther and faster than ever before, and it wouldn’t be long now, Pastor Ken said. China, North Korea. And then we’ll all be swept away, Joe thought. They’d also been to Poland, Pastor Ken went on to say, a hard nut to crack, given how ingrained the RC church was in their history and culture. And Polish people
were stubborn. But they’d met with members of a small Baptist church in Warsaw. “Maryanne made a haul in Poland,” Pastor Ken added.

“Dinnerware,” Maryanne jumped in to explain, telling Joe about the twelve-piece set of china she’d bought in Krakow for next to nothing. “And I didn’t know Poland had such great crystal.”

“I was thinking of your chairs,” Joe says now with a grin to let them know that he’s teasing. “When you lived in Winnipeg.” Reminding them of the lime-green knit cloth Maryanne had come across in a fabric store. She’d covered the seats of their dining room chairs with it and the knit had pilled so badly the chairs were mats of fuzz. It became a joke between them, Maryanne saying she had to go home and shave the chairs. Reminding them of their shared history. Hoping that she might think back to the day on the balcony when he wound up halfway across the room, without knowing how he’d got there.

“Winnipeg was not good to us,” Maryanne says. Her thoughts turn inward as she twists at a large silver ring. She’s put on a lounging costume for dinner, a velour sweater and pants the colour of shiitake mushrooms, and her pale skin is a sheen of hydration, free of cosmetics now. Joe thinks of the products, and the youthful look of her skin.

“The innuendo, the terrible things that were said about Ken, almost finished us,” she says with a bitterness that surprises Joe, and he thinks she may be referring to the split that came in the church when they began to focus on miracles; the boisterous and unrestrained worship they’d claimed to be spirit-led.

“Honey, those times are over,” Pastor Ken interrupts briskly, leaving Joe to wonder what else she might have said.

“Yes, honey, they are.”

They’ve always called one another
honey
. Maybe that is why he came to call Laurie the same. Maryanne’s earrings, crescents of mother of pearl, swing against the side of her neck whenever she moves. Joe turns away from the sight, surprised by the thought that he’d like to put his mouth there.

He wants instead to talk about being with her that hot summer afternoon soon after his mother’s death, kneeling at the Come to Jesus Chair. About being in a semi-wakeful state, his heart like a sparrow crashing from rib to rib. He was receding into a time before there had been time, and his name was being breathed out into the gases that would become the universe.
God has a wonderful plan for your life
. Of course he would pick that up and run with it, given that he’d been made to believe he was remarkable. The miracle birth.

But what
had
happened on the balcony? Over the years he’d told himself that he might have been high on the toxic fumes of the chair’s metallic paint, and passed out. Or God had looked on him with mercy and given him what he’d most needed at that time. Rapture, ecstasy. Whatever it was, he’d experienced the same thing when he’d felt the flutter of Amina’s pulse.

“It looks like Vancouver, on the other hand, has been good to you,” Joe says now. “You sure do live on the right side of the city.”

“And why not?” Maryanne asks. “I remember those seat covers, Joe. What a joke, they were. You know, there was something wrong with us having to live like that. Since
we’ve left Winnipeg we’ve learned that God doesn’t want his children to be poor. We’re first-class citizens, not second class. What kind of advertisement would we be for God if we lived in a shack and went around in rags?”

“Amen,” Pastor Ken says.

“God
likes
to give things to his kids,” Maryanne continues. “But we have to ask. And he wants us to be specific. You wouldn’t believe how our ministry grew once we learned to be specific.” She goes on to say that after Joe had called them, they’d specifically asked God to send him to them. “And here you are.”

Sent. Drawn. That’s what he’d been feeling.

“Listen, Joe, you’ve been lying heavy on our hearts for some time now,” Pastor Ken says. “So much so, that one night I just couldn’t get to sleep for thinking about you. And so Maryanne and I came to this room, to that very table over there.” He nods at the arrangement of white loveseats around the glass table. “We agreed to pray until we were at peace about you. Before we knew it, it was morning, and the sun was shining down there on the water, and I said, ‘Well, Lord, I’ll just put Joe in your hands now. I’m going to leave it up to you.’” His voice cracks with emotion.

“Hey there, honey,” Maryanne calls out gently, and hands him a serviette.

“Thank you, honey.” He laughs, obviously embarrassed. “It’s what I do now, Joe. I cry at the drop of a hat. About a year ago I had what’s called an ischemic happening and I’ve been left with this. I’ve become a blubbering fool. But, hey, that’s all right. I don’t mind. God can use tears too, eh Joe?” He dabs hard at his eyes and then balls the serviette in his fist.

He’s ill, Joe realizes, noticing that he has pouches of soft flesh beneath his eyes, that his features are bloated, his fingers curled against the table are swollen.

“I want to show you something,” Maryanne says to Joe. “You see that rug over there?” She indicates the carpet on the floor beneath the glass table. “Come and have a look at it.”

Joe stands beside her taking in the pattern of animals on the area rug, what look to be gazelles bounding along the borders, reclining among fern-like trees, the colours rich, oranges, reds and browns on a dark blue background.

“I’ve had it for years. Wherever we’ve gone, I’ve taken it with us. I’ll decorate a room around it if I have to. But I’ll never part with it. Once, when we were at rock bottom financially and the apartment we were in was just so awful, I was hungry for something to brighten up the place. And so I asked God for a rug.”

Maryanne sits down on one of the loveseats, and Ken, who has joined them, sits on another and indicates Joe should do the same. As he does, he recognizes the large and well-worn Bible on the table, beside a box of tissues. It’s the same Bible that was on the homemade pulpit when he and Steve broke into the church.

Maryanne continues her story. “And God said to me, ‘So you want a rug. Well, Maryanne, you’ve got to be more specific than that. Just what kind of rug do you want?’ And so I went out and looked at rugs. I found one. But it was way too expensive and I was ashamed to ask for so much, and so I told God the size I needed, and the colours I preferred, and let it go at that.

“I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was, when not much later a delivery man came to the door. He had
something for me, but wouldn’t say what, or where it came from. He’d been paid to deliver it on the condition that he didn’t say. And it was this carpet,” Maryanne says. “When I unrolled it I couldn’t stop crying. It’s a Balouch rug, Joe, it’s from Iran. The rug I thought was too expensive, was also a Balouch rug from Iran. But get this, Joe,” she says and leans toward him. “This one is
midnight blue
. Midnight blue has always been my favourite colour, and God knew that. You see, I was willing to settle for just a rug, but God wanted me to have the absolute right one.”

“Praise the Lord,” Pastor Ken says. “I never get tired of hearing that story.”

Joe fights the growing pressure in his chest as he pictures Lino as the Lost Boy he saw on television so many years ago, standing beside the journalist who seemed at a loss for words to describe the child’s situation. The boy was a walking skeleton, naked; his taut mouth stretched across his face, baring his teeth. He looked stunned, as though he didn’t recognize the man pointing the camera at him or the stammering journalist as being human, as his own suffering had turned him subhuman.

“Midnight blue,” Joe says.

“Yes. But what that really says is that God delights in blessing his children. And he wants to bless you. You’re his kid too.”

“With a Jaguar.”

“That’s Cerise’s car,” Pastor Ken says. “She worked hard for that, she earned that. Look, Joe,” he says and then takes a deep breath. “God wants more for you than a washed-up trailer business. What kind of advertisement is that?”

“God wants you to be part of our ministry,” Maryanne breaks in to say.

“Me?”

He can hear their breathing as he holds his own breath. Sent. Drawn. Fuck. He senses their growing unease, but remains silent.

“You know what, honey, I think Joe and I need a moment here,” Pastor Ken says.

Maryanne gets up without a word and leaves the room.

“What we need, Joe, is a moment of prayer. Shall we?” Pastor Ken says.

When Joe doesn’t answer, he says again, “Shall we?” and it is not a question. Then he closes his eyes and begins. “Our dear father. Our heavenly and almighty God and Father. Maker of heaven and earth. You have said that when two or three come together in your name, you are present. Come now and sit with us. Thank you, Jesus.”

His voice deepens and grows strong as he goes along. Then he raises his head and hands, his palms open, to receive what words should come next. For his thoughts not to be his thoughts but something from on high that will leave Joe euphoric and brimming with hope, his fears, anxieties, uncertainties banished. After a time Ken falls silent, and then begins to whisper-pray,
la, la, la, la, tickle, tickle
, his tongue making little clicks.

Joe stares down at his hands, the muscles in his neck taut.

You know, Joe here needs, wants, your will, tickle, la, la, reveal, hold, lay, open, display, give to Joe. To Joe. La, la, la, la, click, click
. He opens his eyes and blinks, as though surprised to find himself where he is, and his hands fall
to his knees. Then he turns and looks at Joe. “You know, I haven’t even asked about your father.”

It takes a moment for Joe to reply. “My father is fine. He’s going on ninety-six years old now.”

“Oh my, ninety-six. That is just so amazing. And Laurie?” Ken’s voice drops as though her name is a cause for deep sorrow.

Joe chooses not to answer. “You remember when we talked on the phone, I said I was going to Fort McMurray to see Steve. And that’s what I thought I would do. And then I met these people who gave me a ride.”

And as he tells Lino’s story of having walked for five years in search of his family, Ken’s head begins to droop and his chin comes to rest on his chest. His eyes close, but sometimes he sighs, makes a sympathetic sound to let Joe know he’s listening. As Joe relates the accident, he sees the shower of glass flying toward him, Amina’s head and shoulders erupting through the windshield, he hears Lino cry out her name.