That Magnet Thing

He never thought much about it. Actually, he didn’t think about it at all. It was just the way he was and he thought everyone else was the same.

See, he had … mmm, how do we explain it? This invisible thing he had around him? Let’s see … it was a glow. No, you can see a glow. An energy? No, that tells you nothing. Perhaps a magnetism explains it best but it’s not one of those grabby magnets which slap against the refrigerator when it gets close.

See, Geoffrey’s magnetism is gently, subtly unobtrusive. Not compelling or demanding – just sweetly inviting, shall we say.

You meet him and you can’t stop smiling, no matter your day or your life. He just sort-of glows a smile into you and it slides down to your heart, warmly chuckling.

He is the sort of guy you first think of if you have a good or bad moment, the first person you want to share your latest stuff with.

There’s nothing physical you can pin this magnet of his on. Not especially good looking – bald, a bit pudgy, a limp from a fat spill and a happy cough from too many cigarettes, drugs and slugs of liquor; all forgone for a healthier life. He wasn’t well brought up or educated either.

The story is that baby Geoffrey – no name at that stage – was found on a New York doorstep and he was taken home by a kind and misguided woman who couldn’t get herself off drugs or prostitution. Somehow, the authorities found an abandoned Geoffrey in the squalor of an upstairs Bronx brownstone, the smell of vomit, urine and blood stifling the nostrils of his rescuers. So, from about two years he was bounced from institution to foster home to institution to foster home till he ran away, at fourteen, deciding he could bring himself up better than anyone else could.

He trod the well-trodden path of those left in the cracks of life, uncared for and anonymous. He needed food so he stole. He needed hope so he drank. He needed escape so he took drugs. He needed alcohol and drugs so he stole more. He stole bigger and more often till he was noticed.

He was noticed by two groups.

Firstly, the local drug runners noticed him and he became a street bunny. a runner.

Then the police noticed him and he was slapped about and bribed – free drugs to the cops or behind bars. They’d then overlook his clandestine activities.

Then he had to deal harder and steal harder to pay for the drugs he was giving away to the cops to stay silent so he could survive on the balance of his drug sales. His drug bosses noticed this, didn’t like it, suspected him of split loyalty and cut his supply. He had nothing to give the pigs, the cops, but they didn’t believe him. Who would? A homeless, penniless, scruffy twenty-year-old with no education or roots. These outer things induce trust, for some reason, and he was a dried-up leaf in a storm, thrown whatever way it pleased.

The mob disowned him and sent their scouts out for their pound of skin – the last two instalments that he owed or his two index fingers.

Then his angel turned up. An unlikely angel.

On the run from his murderous stalkers, starving and shoeless, there was only one place he knew to run – the only other evil he knew.

He quietly tracked down Sergeant O’Halloran, the large-gutted, crew-cutted, six-foot-three block of Irish temper. He snipped open a locked Mercedes and leapt in, knowing that Big Sean O’Halloran was watching.

“I know you’ve got stash, holding out on me,” whispered Big Sean as he hauled Geoffrey from the car. “Let’s see if a few days in the slammer’ll cure your memory – help you remember you have my shit. Okay?”

It wasn’t a question and Geoffrey was relieved to be behind bars, as long as none of his pursuers didn’t end up there as well. He sat on the thin mattress next to a skinny runt of a man, sweating and vomiting his alcohol-induced torrent into the bucket. His other companion was bigger than Sean, a black man with tattoos, missing teeth and a constant, angry conversation with somebody not in the cell, somebody he was clearly raging against.

All is perception and, from Geoffrey’s point of view, this was heaven.

The next morning, shaking with cold and hunger, Big Sean towed him out of the cell and into an interrogation room.

“My shift ends now and so do your options!” said Sergeant O’Halloran. Silence. Geoffrey’s bottom lip quivered and he wondered if he should say something.

“Jeez, can’t stand bloody crying!” said the red-headed hulk of anger. “I’m going and you’re coming too! To your stash.”

Geoffrey’s chair flipped up and he landed on his back, his head hitting the concrete floor. It took him several moments to realise the sergeant’s foot was to blame. He lay there without options, rubbing his sore head and realising his back and left shoulder were now pounding in pain. All he could do was shake his head to indicate I don’t have anything to give you. I’m sorry. A boot went into his kidney and he yelled silently, his voice absent for want of water. And food.

“Aah, you useless lump. Okay, one more day in the slammer and that’s your last chance!”

Geoffrey was grabbed by his dirty, grey t-shirt and towed back to his cell, his legs scuttling after his propelled body. He was tossed on the dirty, plastic mattress – the cell now empty of the others though the stink remained – and the sergeant stood there, shaking his head. Geoffrey noticed his pale, freckled hands were shaking too, now. The sergeant really needed his hit, as badly as Geoffrey needed water and food.

“You’re a bloody loser, aren’t you!”

Geoffrey nodded. Nobody could argue with that.

“Just remember, Geoffrey, you git, if you don’t obey the rules, you don’t live the life.” Big Sean, his angel, left.

All is perception and Geoffrey’s simpering mind translated it differently from O’Halloran’s meaning. It was as if a light shone in his brain, from somewhere. From inside, somehow.

The “rules”, his brain told him, were not the sergeant’s rules but the rules of the light inside him – the light he’d never seen before. He didn’t know he had rules and lights inside him but he immediately knew the life he wanted and, weirdly, knew the rules inside him would take him there … out of this shit-hole and to something beyond his current experiences and imagination.

He’d never prayed before but he tried it, lying there in that cold, stinking cell with commands, thumps and yells echoing round the concrete building. He left the savage, outside world behind and went in … into the light that welcomed him with an exquisite peace.

Unaware of time, he was woken by the bars being rattled. The smell of cigarettes closed in and he realised he was being spoken to by someone close.

“I am constable Bradley and what’re you doing here?” demanded the constable.

He tried to speak and indicated his need for water. The constable frowned, turned, disappeared and returned with two cups of water. Geoffrey downed them and found a small voice returning.

“There’s no charge sheet for you, sir, so what are you doing here?”

“Not sure,” he said, timidly.

“Right, to save me paperwork and you more pain, how about you go home.”

Geoffrey managed a smile and pushed himself up, painfully.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“Two or three days,” said Geoffrey, uncertainly. It might have been more.

The constable helped him up, pressed ten dollars into his hand and said, “Go get some food then find a bigger life than this one, hey! Go! Go on, don’t stand there staring at me. Get the hell out of here and get a new direction.”

Geoffrey was filled with gratitude and light and wanted to thank the man from the bottom of his faltering heart. All he could do was shake the kind hand and step out into the sunlight and head to the nearest diner, the precious life-giving ten dollars clutched desperately in his fist.

There’s moments that just fall together, as if God has just won Lotto and wants to play. This was one of those moments.

He sat in the Lucky Diner, looking out of the window, reluctant to leave this warm and friendly place. Ravenous though he was, after downing five free glasses of water, he lingered over the plate of fried food, delaying his departure. It was a cold, cruel world out there and he was reluctant to return to it. Also, he couldn’t decide where he should go, in that cold, cruel world – every huddle-spot of the homeless was known by the drug demons and nowhere was safe.

As he pondered the exquisite safety of this moment and the opposite of his future, there was an almighty crash, then yelling, in the kitchen. The yelling continued for a few minutes, rising in intensity then, suddenly, a kitchen hand was being man-handled out the door by two men – probably the owner and a cook, Geoffrey surmised.

“Look, boss, it’s good to have him gone but who’s going to do the dishes now?” asked the younger man in his chef’s uniform, as they walked back. Then something happened. The only way he could explain it was that the Hand of God grabbed him by the back collar, hauled him up and made his mouth work – the most words he’d said to anyone for a long time.

“I can help out, sir,” he said, then wondered who had crawled into his mouth and said that – he’d never washed a plate in his life.

The two men stopped, turned and stared at the most unkempt, shoeless man they’d ever seen. A silence stretched across New York and beyond as they looked at each other and back to Geoffrey.

The voice inside him opened his mouth again. “I really need the work and you can trust me. I have nothing to give but my two willing hands and a fistful of trust.”

The two men looked at each other and back to him, as if waiting for the silence to unroll from across the city. They looked at each other and the older man gave the smallest shrug.

He was given a towel and told to wash up as best he could at the basin in the mans’ toilet. Then he set to work. Desperate to impress, he learned quickly and, despite a criminal record they didn’t ask about, was allowed to sleep there the night – secure for Geoffrey and security for George, the owner.

A year later George admitted he couldn’t understand why he had employed and trusted Geoffrey in the first place. All logic was against this homeless, penniless man with no references. But something inside told him to trust. So he did.

This is when he told Geoffrey he’d just been diagnosed with cancer, might live another year, and would Geoffrey like to take over the business.

By now, Geoffrey had his own little apartment and had met a sweet woman, Sarah. He thought life was as good as it could possibly get. Then this proposal … homeless druggie to business owner in a year.

His answer to George was to break down in tears. His gratitude to George, and to life, was bigger than his little heart could hold and it spilled out, all over his face and on to the floor.

George, a patient man, waited till the tears slowed down and said, “I take it that’s a yes!” He hugged Geoffrey.

After that, George popped into the Lucky Diner on most days, on the pretext of helping Geoffrey become acquainted with all the details of running a busy diner. The truth was that George needed to keep touch with the heart-beat of his life – the diner he started all those years ago. Of course, Geoffrey was grateful for the back-up and help of George, the father he never had, in a way.

Sarah kept her administration job at the local car wrecking yard and was able to look after the accounts for Geoffrey, as well, while he smiled more and more customers into the place every day.

Being near the police station, his Lucky Diner was frequented by many down-and-outers – others like he used to be. He always took the time to sit and listen and, when needed, give extra food for free.

Now, there’s one mystery he couldn’t unravel. Why didn’t Sergeant O’Halloran ever come in here? It was the nearest diner to the sergeant’s station but, weirdly, the two never met. It was as if each had an opposite charge, like a magnet, and Geoffrey’s trusting goodness somehow repelled Big Sean’s callous anger.

In the same way, perhaps, Constable Mark Bradley, became a frequent visitor. Like Geoffrey, he would spend a lot of time talking to those who had lost hope and trust in a life that threatened their every move.

This magnet thing, as Geoffrey called it, seemed to work in fascinating and unexpected ways.

Because Geoffrey and Mark spent time listening to people, the diner became the go-to place for those wanting answers to the questions of life. These people weren’t always tramps and thieves and there’d typically be a new Buick or Mercedes parked outside.

Eventually, Geoffrey was asked to give talks where halls had been booked and the advertising was done by others. All he had to do was turn up and speak from his expanding heart. He often took Mark on stage with him, to share the talks, and they often stood in for each other. The Tandem Talks, they were called, even when only one of them was there.

Geoffrey was asked to go on tours of the country – big money, hotels, limousines, fame and all that – but he was quietly content to stay home with Sarah and their son, Marcus George, or to be at work with his growing number of staff and customers.

He had to expand the premises into the vacant building next door and George was able to witness the steady growth while he proved the doctors wrong about his impending death. That magnetic thing seemed to work in other ways. As Geoffrey’s business grew, so did the community. Other business started up in the vacant, run-down buildings nearby and trust and connection grew from the cracked concrete around him.

Of course, no one lives forever and George was happy to cruise to a new diner in the sky, three years after he sold the business. The day after the funeral a new customer turned up and Geoffrey was at a loss. How to react? It was a sad remnant of Sergeant O’Halloran, in a worn, holey track suit and a body as slumped as the bags under his eyes. Still a large man, his skin now sagged off his thin face as if his bones were knives.

“I’ve come to apologise,” he said, quietly, as he stared out the window, unable to look Geoffrey in the eye.

Geoffrey sat next to him. “All this and more is because of you, Sean,” he said, waving his hand round the diner.

Sean turned his head, frowned and stared as Geoffrey explained how Sean’s last words changed his world. Unable to exhibit anything but gratitude and forgiveness, Geoffrey induced Sean to return day after day. Sean, you see, had been fired from the force for drug and violence offences and had hit the bottom, just as Geoffrey had. And, like Geoffrey, had called out for help at that bottom place. The magnetic thing brought him to his angel, Geoffrey, who he had been an angel to three years ago.

And that’s the simple story of a simple man with trust as his magnet and gratitude his essence.