Unafraid

I scary people easy.

Got skin as dark as a bedroom when the nightmares come. Eyes that look blank. 

I also talk to God all the time. Don’t do it out loud, like some crazy person. Just always got a second conversation going.

Like right now, a sweet-faced, young thing sit down next to me on the plane. I look at her, say, “How ya doing?”

Joe once say, “Look at someone when you talking.” So I raise my eyes to the Lord. Say, “Lord, let her keep that smile!” Eyes up, eyes down. Keep talking to God, while I talk to other people. Right now, old lady wants to sit down next to sweet thing. Face like a prune. Carry a big old cane.

Sweet thing say, “Mom, I gave you the aisle seat, so you can get to the bathroom easy.” Sweet thing speak loud. Old lady must be hard of hearing. Sweet thing say, “Put your seat belt on!”

Old lady sigh to make a point, like she don’t want to. She find the belt but can’t buckle it. Daughter do it for her.

“Comfortable?” daughter ask.

Old lady sigh again. 

“Yes?” daughter ask.

Old lady shout, “Yes!” Crankier than a rusty pedal on a bike that needs fixing.

Daughter smile anyway. Mother and daughter look alike. Same pale skin. Pink cheeks. Double chin. Two chubby cherubs.

Daughter ask, “You going to Pittsburgh or continuing to Chicago?”

I look up. “Lord, she’s friendly!”

Damn!  Did I speak out loud?

Lord say, “Yes, you did.”

“Pittsburgh,” I say.

Sweet thing ain’t scared. Yet.

She ask, “Got family there?” 

“A daughter.”

Eyes up. Ask God if okay to say.

He say, “Yes.”

Eyes down. “Quit drinking five months ago.” 

Her expression don’t change. 

I say, “I was living on the street sixteen years. My daughter came to New York and found me.”

She still smiling. 

I look up. “Thank you, Lord!’ 

“What’d she find you for?” her mother ask. 

Nasty woman! Eyes flash anger. Look up, where they can’t hurt nobody. “Lord, let me not ruin things!”

“Keep talking,” God say.

“You see, I living in a shelter.”

“Oh,” say the daughter.

Old hag lean forward to see me better. Nose sniffing. Like I smell.

“Lord, what to do?”

“Explain.”

“I got clean clothes. Shower every night. Got a bed. Getting better. In God’s time.”

The plane’s engine suddenly roar. My head about to busting with the noise. Sweet thing so friendly, I forget to be scared. Now we taking off, I grip the sides of my seat. Shout, “I’m scared of flying!” 

Everybody around me suddenly talking. Sweet thing ask—God bless her soul— “Can I help?”

Eyes go up. “Lord, You sent me an angel.” Joe once say, “You supposed to ask a person’s name.

“What’s your name?” 

“Jane.”

“Gerry.” Joe say you supposed to shake people’s hand when you ask. So I put out my hand.

Jane shake it. Got to talk, or I think about flying. “Daughter paid for my ticket. Last time I had money, I worked a job in Pittsburgh. Then they closed the plant.”

“How awful!” Jane say.

“Start drinking. Drink so bad, my wife send me to live with my younger brother in New Jersey. Got a job stocking shelves. My hands shake. Start breaking bottles. Then pick them up and threaten people. Don’t want to be a burden on my brother. So I left.” I shake my head, sad. “For sixteen years!”

Jane don’t flinch. So I say, “I mail my brother a postcard from a shelter fifteen years after. He come looking for me. That’s how I come to know my daughter again. He contact her.”

Jane ask, “Mom, you listening?”

“Yes!” Voice hard. Lke a big, old rock you break on a chain gang. 

“Lord, forgive me for living a life that embarasses others.”

Flight attendant stop by. Anyone want a beverage? Jane not sure. She look at me, say, “Ginger ale.” Then she ask, “Mom?”

“Give me a stiff one!” Old lady point a crooked, bony finger at something in the air that not there. “One of those little bottles!” Lean forward and look at me. Wag finger back and forth. “None for you, Sonny!”      

Old lady got some nerve! 

Jane say, “Dewar’s on the rocks for my mother.”

I look at flight attendant. “Give me a ginger ale,” I say, gruff.

God say, “You sound angry.”

“I am!”

Damn! I say it out loud.

“God, Let anger not control me.”

He say, “Make amends.”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“No need to apologize,” Jane say.

Flight attendant don’t approve. She hand me my ginger ale slowly, like she don’t want to.

“She scared, Lord.”

Flight attendant take a last look at me. Move on to the next row. I look out the window. Jane’s friendliness make me not afraid. The clouds paper-thin. They look light as can be. Peaceful and quiet. Kind of like heaven. Moving swiftly as sixteen years. 

Now I’m watching my life like I’m watching a movie. See myself when my brother and my daughter found me, walking the streets of Chinatown. Seventy pounds lighter, wearing torn clothes and dirty sneakers without laces.

I used to dress sharp. My wife loved how I took care of myself. I was a ladies man. First year, I wasn’t even home. My wife’s got a whole lot of patience. Had a daughter. Still wasn’t home. Baby look exactly like my wife. Holding her in my arms, I happy.

  “Got to go to the boys room,” I say.

“Sure,” Jane say. She move her legs. “Mom, let Jerry get by.”

Mother clucks her tongue, like I was a bother. Presses herself into her seat like she’s going to get a disease from me passing her.

“God, it hard to be old.”

“Don’t I know,” God says.

Lord got a sense of humor. As I walk down the aisle, people looking up. I’m six feet five, according to the doctor. Barefoot on the scale, I weigh two hundred fifty. With a full beard. 

“Excuse me,” I keep saying, moving down the aisle. I see a woman clutch her baby tighter. A man stares.

“Lord, help me down this aisle.”

“You doing fine,” the Lord says.

The bathroom clean and brighter than most bathrooms. No smell, and the counter’s neat. Little bottle of scented soap. Airplanes just get better. Lots of things get better. But I didn’t see no change for sixteen years. Sixteen years! I took myself out of life. Should of stayed in.

“Lord, why couldn’t I see it?’

I remember. They close the plant without notice. Everyone I work with going to that damn unemployment office. Come back with nothing. Months pass. One guy kill himself. Had a family he loved. Just give up. Drove out to the woods. Took a shotgun with him. Wasn’t right to happen. There ought to be a better way for companies to do it. Another guy hung himself. He shouldn’t of. His little girl found him. How she ever gonna get over that?

Then my wife didn’t want me around anymore. So I start hanging out in bars. There always a bar will take you. Then I’d go home drunk, and my wife, she’d get mad. She say, if I was going to get drunk, I could sleep somewhere else. I could find another home.

I couldn’t believe what I hear. The wife who loved me, telling me to leave. The wife I thought I loved. She called my brother in New Jersey and told him to do something. Say, ‘Take him, or set him straight.” 

I’m thinking all this as I make my way back to my seat. People is staring. I keep talking to God. Eyes up, eyes down. Mouth moving. I just a big, black, scary thing moving through space. People looking at each other with one eye on me. Talking about me to each other.

Why don’t they leave me alone?

“Shut up!” I say. 

Damn! 

Now everybody talking about me! Flight attendant rush over. “Sir, is everything OK?” 

I just ignore her. Old lady asleep, so I squeeze past quickly. Jane looking up from book. Fake smile. I can tell fake from real. But she ask me, like nothing’s wrong, “Are you hungry? The food cart’s coming.”

“No,” I say. “Too nervous.” 

Flight attendant say, “Are you all right now, sir?” Like she can’t hardly breathe, she so scared.

Jane say, “Yes, we are.”

Flight attendant move away.

Passenger in the row behind us stand up. “Is everything all right?’ he ask. Big, angry voice. Probably want to pick a fight. 

“Seat belt sign on,” I tell him, in case he don’t know. I about to fight him myself. “Why don’t you just sit down?”

Jane say, “It’s okay, sir! It’s okay!”

Man still standing. Jane say, “He’s my adoptive father.”

I blow a laugh out my mouth. 

“I’m his daughter,” she say.

Without looking, I can feel him still standing. She say, “We’re all right. We’re okay. Nothing’s going to happen. Please sit down, sir. Sit down, sir. Everything’s all right.” Then she ask—as if nothing just happen—“Mom, are you hungry?” 

“I’m sleeping,” the old lady say.

Jane roll her eyes. “Mothers!”

“At least you got one!”

“Lord, everybody got his hardships!”

‘Yes, Jane do,” He say.

Got to keep talking. I say, “I never knew my mother. She died from asthma. There was complications.”

“How old were you?” 

“Four.”

“And your father?”

“He gone—disappeared—before I was born. Her father—my grandpa—raised me. He was pastor of a Pentecostal church. “

“Is he alive?”

“Don’t know. When I got to drinking, he stopped talking to me. Didn’t want me at home no more. That’s when God flew out of my life. I stopped talking to Him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What she sorry for?” 

I say it loud. Damn! 

“Lord, help me! Jane just feeling the sorrow I felt for me.”

Flight attendant back. She offer Jane a bag of pretzels, and Jane take it. Watching her eat, I get hungry. How many times did I see people eating, looking like I needed to eat too? They see me, but don’t care. I was the Invisible Man. Had to pinch myself to know I was there. Still hurts. When they done, they throw away what they don’t eat. I ate what they throw.”

“Give me a bag of pretzels.” I sound gruff.

Jane laugh nervously. She give me her bag. Call to the flight attendant, “Miss, could I have more?”

Flight attendant smile, say, “Certainly.” Give her a bag.

Joe taught me to ask about others. Care about other people. I ask Jane, “What you going to Pittsburgh for?” 

Jane not looking at me. She give up on me. Just like the others. I get angry. “Lord, what I do?”

God says, “Ask about her!”

“Something wrong?” 

She got tears in her eyes. “We’re going to my dad’s funeral.”

She just sad.

‘Thank you, Lord!” I say out loud.

Holy Moses!

“I’m sorry!” I say.

Jane look nervous. Say to me, “My dad worked as a labor lawyer. Argued in court in behalf of people like you. Men who lost their jobs, like you. Without notice. Then they couldn’t meet their mortgages. Lost their homes. He got US Steel to agree to 60 days’ notice before firing. A small change. But a victory.”

I say, ‘Thank you, Lord, for showing me how we all connected to each other through You!”

I say to Jane, “Sound like a good man.”

“He was,” she say.

“He’ll be missed.”

“Amen,” she say.

The rest of the plane trip, I sleep. Wake when my ears start to bother me. On the street, always had an ear infection. Could hardly hear out my right ear. Hurt like the devil. 

Fifteen long minutes later, my ears pop. Nothing so precious as relief from pain.

The flight attendant say we landing.

I look up. “Lord, thank you for this day. Thank you for my wonderful daughter, Julia. Thank you for Joe, who admit me that first day and help with those damn papers. Thank you for Charlene, who got me toilet paper when the bathroom had none. Thank you for Jerry, who took me round the first night. Introduced me to people. Gave me a new name. His. Thank you, God, for giving me the strength not to walk out. Lot of people there look worse off than me. I thought, ‘I don’t need these people.’ Thank you, God, for making me stay put.”

“Thank you for my daughter. That all there is. First, the gift of life. Then the love you have.”

But when I get my bag from the conveyor belt, there’s no Julia. She supposed to meet me. 

Jane get her two suitcases and wait. She put her mother on a nearby chair. Say she isn’t in a hurry. 

But Julia never come. We wait half-hour until no one left. Jane ask if I have Julia’s number. Have number. Just no phone. Jane call for me. 

Julia waiting for emergency road service. She so sorry! I should wait for her at the conveyor belt. She hope I’m okay!

Jane wish she could stay, but her mother want to leave. I say it okay. God know I spent time alone. I wait for Julia. But I hope she come soon. 

Most of my life I alone. I be all right.

Jane smile, say goodbye. I sit down. There’s a bum walking around. In a nice airport like this, they probably throw him out. A young, white guy with a baseball cap turned back and a beard he hardly old enough to grow. The knees of his jeans is tore up. So is his shirt. Looks like he smells.

He come over. Does smell. He look in my face. Say, “Buddy, got a quarter?”

I see myself.

“Lord,” I say, “You never stop working.”

I ask his name.