But he wasn’t thinking of that nearoff/faroff tomorrow as he crossed Broadway. No, he was letting his recollections drift back. Back to the carefree time when he was a child. Just a kid who loved the summer and hated Labor Day because it meant the time for school had come ‘round again. A kid who thought that if you stayed out in the cold air without a coat you would catch ‘ammonia’. A kid who loved baseball, and whose father had scrounged enough money to take him to his first game, the Brewers versus somebody (
they were wearing red caps—right?
), for his seventh birthday. A kid who had heard a song sung at that game, a song which his father had explained was the national anthem. An important song that you were supposed to stand for, kind of like the pledge of allegiance in school, and put your hand over your heart, and, for sure, take your hat off if you were wearing one. All the players had done that, the Brewers and the guys with the red (?) caps, and they had all held their hats over their hearts as a little man with a big voice began to sing into a microphone near home plate. Jay hadn’t known the words, but it sure seemed like everybody else in County Stadium did, because they were all singing, and singing
loud
. Not knowing the words embarrassed him, in a way. It was an important song, like his father had said, so he probably should have known it. But he didn’t, so he did the next best thing to singing: faking singing. He moved his lips slowly, pretending, pretty sure that no one, not even his dad, would know he wasn’t making a sound. He faked, and while his lips moved soundlessly he listened, because the next time he came to a game, or if his mother could sell enough of her knitting so that he could afford the uniform and the cleats for little league next summer (his father had also told him that the national anthem was sung before the games in little league, as well as before just about every important thing there was), Jay wanted to be able to actually sing the darn thing. Yes, he listened, and he tried to remember, and he could still, walking slowly across Broadway seventeen years later, recall one line from the very important song. A line that had puzzled him, that had made his freckled nose scrunch up with wonder. One line. The first line. ‘
Oh say can you see by the donzerly light...
’ The donzerly light. If it was in a very important song, he figured that it must be some special kind of light.
Donzerly Light. A special kind of light. That’s what he had thought until his first year of junior high, when he’d stumbled across the actual words to the Star Spangled Banner in an appendix to his history book. Donzerly Light had died for him in the seventh grade, replaced by the ‘dawn’s early light’. Gone. Forgotten with ‘ammonia’ and the dozens of other silly things a child’s mind could twist and conjure from what was real. Lost.
Until now.
Jay stepped from the crosswalk to the curb and went no further. Didn’t turn left toward the subway, didn’t follow Joe Blue Collar who was headed that way as well. Instead he looked at Sign Guy, who was sitting there gazing across the traffic that was moving along Broadway again, looking beyond to the dark concrete canyon that was Wall Street, his hands resting atop the plywood placard tilted against his legs, fingers tapping gently on the painted surface. He didn’t look to Jay at first, didn’t even seem to notice he was there.
And then notice he did, his head twisting slowly left, chin rising so that the streetlight shadows cut by the brim of his straw hat rose above his smile, above his slender nose, and revealed eyes that were cast at Jay with...surprise.
“Hey there,” Jay said. His right hand came out of his pocket where it had been fiddling with the change from lunch and gave a small, polite wave.
Sign Guy’s head tipped slightly to one side, as if the gesture was an oddity. His left hand moved from the sign and came to a point where it hovered for a moment in a loose fist in the space between himself and Jay, then the index and middle fingers straightened upward and spread to form a V. Forty some years ago, back when the Germans were Krauts and the Japanese Japs, it would have meant ‘Victory’, but this symbol that Sign Guy was flashing was born of a more recent time, of a later, very different period of conflict, and it held a somewhat opposite meaning to its earlier brethren. A meaning that Sign Guy gave quiet voice to. “Peace, brother.”
“Yeah,” Jay said, his hand slipping back into his pocket where it began to sieve the loose change once more, coins clinking softly as his fingers dredged through them. “I like the saying you have today. On your sign.”
The V folded back to a loose fist that settled on his knee as Sign Guy gave his new fan a slow once-over. Young, reddish-blonde hair, eyes that were lost yet eager, like those of some yearling creature venturing off into the big wide world for the first time. He held a briefcase in his left hand, an imitation leather one, and in the pit of that arm was tucked a folded
Wall Street Journal
. Thousands like him passed each weekday. Tens of thousands.
Yet this one, unlike the others, had stopped, of his own accord, and was speaking, of his own accord. And wasn’t that queer. Queer and interesting. “Is that so?”
“It reminded me of something. Something when I was a kid.”
Sign Guy nodded at the odd young man who was still talking to him. Who seemed eager to share something with him. How very, very interesting indeed. “Is that so?”
“I was curious,” Jay began. “I mean, I know what it means to me, but what does what you wrote mean? What did you intend it to mean?”
“It means what it means.”
Well, that was cryptic enough. As cryptic as what was written on his sign. But maybe that was part of its meaning, Jay surmised. Of what it spoke to. The ambiguity might be an invitation to see what one wanted to see in the words, if anything. It could mean what anyone wanted it to.
Or it could mean nothing at all. Just the rantings of a fellow two aces short of a full deck. Harmless enough, though.
Still, he didn’t seem crazy, Jay thought as he looked at Sign Guy, at his perpetual smile and the simple wonder on his face that he was being talked to. He didn’t have that vacuous glint in his eyes, nor the random haunt to his voice, as if the conversation might suddenly split off toward something of significance only to himself. No, just the opposite seemed the case, in fact. Jay sensed purpose in this man. And contentment. It showed in his expression, and in the economy about his manner, the frugal peace of his words. His smile seemed the comfortable range of expressed emotion. No more, no less. No swings to melancholy or euphoria. He said what needed to be said. Did what needed to be done. For whatever his purpose was.
In a perfect world, one where money, where position did not matter, Jay could see himself in envy of the calm about this man. This bum.
But that world did not exist. Never had, never would. Money mattered. Position mattered. This Jay Grady knew. Knew painfully better than most.
“I work up the street,” Jay offered, and Sign Guy nodded pleasantly.
“You’re a stock broker.”
“Right,” Jay said, not correcting the record so that it was clear he was a
junior
broker, a wet behind the ears gofer (slave) assigned to one of Stanley & Mitchell’s account brokers. He did grunt work, paper work, any work that smacked of shit work because the account brokers had once been juniors themselves, as had the account managers, and the account executives, and at good old Stanley & Mitchell you followed in the footsteps of those before you in order to learn the way. The right way. The Stanley & Mitchell way. “I suppose that’s not a tough guess, considering where we are.”
“Not tough at all.”
Jay nodded, and the silence that followed dragged, becoming awkward after a few seconds, and outright discomfiting after a few more. Sign Guy did not look away, but Jay did, his eyes dipping toward the ground and fixing on the coffee can near the bum’s feet. Looking at this he was struck suddenly by the image of a bone-thin black man who had begged a buck off of him his second day in the city, and he remembered being disturbed by the sight of the transient’s arms. They looked like waxy twigs, so fragile that a sharp gust seemed capable of snapping them, yet they were clearly resilient enough to stand God knew how many years’ worth of pokes from this needle or that. Scars stitched up the tender flesh of either forearm like plastic zippers that allowed life to leak away. That mélange of sickening sights had churned in Jay’s gut as he walked away from the transient less one buck, his appetite, and certain illusions of the down and out.
That encounter had stuck in his mind for some reason, and now it pricked at him like an old fracture that spat pain when irritated.
“What do you do with the money?” Jay asked as he stared at the coffee can. The streetlight’s white glow penetrated the opaque plastic of the slitted lid, and he could make out the faded green folds of money inside. A decent little mound of it, though he could not discern any denominations. Probably ones, he figured. It was what he had given the addict his second day in the city, and what most people likely gave panhandlers. Except the rare individual who might slip the downtrodden a five, maybe to soothe a guilt or two. “Do you—”
“I deposit it,” Sign Guy answered, his smile never breaking. If he did take any offense at the amputated inquiry, it showed not one bit.
“You deposit it,” Jay parroted. It was one answer he had not expected—a bum with a bank account?
“Of course.”
It was laughable, but Jay wasn’t about to laugh, because he could remember few people who’d sounded as serious about anything as Sign Guy sounded about this.
“Good for you, buddy,” Jay said, and again the quiet lingered. He eyed the coffee can once more. Purposefully now, though. In his pocket the hand that had been fiddling with the change now scooped it all together and fisted around it. A buck fifty, maybe, that was all. He had no paper in his wallet. None at all. Not a five, not a one. Lunch had tapped him out, and he wouldn’t be stopping by the ATM until morning. He had credit cards—too many, of course—but he doubted that Sign Guy was set up to take plastic. Wouldn’t that be a hoot if he was.
So the change it was, and Jay’s hand came out of his pocket. He smiled at Sign Guy, but said nothing, thinking that to speak of charity might clutter the moment with unnecessary discomfort—for both of them. And why do that? The gesture was simple enough. Something had been innocently given him, a short reminiscence of childhood naïveté, and now he was going to give something in return. To that end he stepped one pace closer, and that was when the bum said something that came from somewhere left of left field.
“What the hell are you doing?”
The question, the challenge, came as Jay was about to lean toward the Yuban can. It stopped him cold. “Excuse me?”
“What are you doing?” Sign Guy asked again, firmly and less the Hades modifier. Still, not angrily. More curiously, as if the handout he was about to receive was wildly unexpected. An aberration—if that were possible for a bum to think.
Jay glanced at his fist, then looked back to Sign Guy. “I have some spare change.”
“And?”
‘And’? ‘And’ what?
“I’m afraid I’m not following you, buddy. I just want to give you some change.”
“Why?” The retort came sharply, quickly, the unwavering smile almost too sincere considering the turn the exchange had taken.
The inquiry, like the one preceding it, stuttered Jay’s thoughts. “‘Why?’“
“Why?”
“Look, I was just—”
“Did I ask you to?”
Okay, wherever left of left field was, a lefter place had just been discovered. “Ask me? To give you money?”
“Did I?”
“Of course not.”
The reply moved Sign Guy’s face, cocking it quizzically aside a bit, his televangelist smile warming with wonder. He seemed half pleased, half bewildered. “Did I make you?”
“Make me?” Jay parroted, lost completely now. Ask? Make? What was the problem here? “I really don’t know where you’re going with this, fella.”
Sign Guy considered Jay’s response for a moment, then he nodded slightly. “You really don’t, do you?”
“Look, I just—”
“Wanted to,” Sign Guy said, completing the statement with quiet wonder, as though intoning some pleasing revelation.
“Right,” Jay confirmed, though why that was necessary he hadn’t a clue. Wasn’t his action, and the ‘why’ associated with it, obvious in motive? Wasn’t it innocent, or had he violated some unwritten rule by which
this
bum live his life?
“You just...
wanted
to?” Sign Guy pressed, a subtle lack of belief about his words.
Jay nodded. “I didn’t mean any—”
“You’re doing this because you
want
to?”
Again, Jay nodded, beating the dead horse once more for good measure.
“Because you want to,” Sign Guy said once again, though it was not a question this time. Rather, it seemed a statement of peculiar acceptance, as if someone had just informed him that
up
was
down
, and, after taking a good look at things, doggone if that wasn’t the honest to God truth. His smiling face shook from side to side. “Wanted to...”
“Is something wrong here? Did I do something to offe—”
“Why did you want to?” Sign Guy inquired, much like a child might ask an adult a question about some wonder of the big wide world.
Jay shrugged at first, but the answer was plain enough. “Because of your sign. Like I told you, it reminded me of something when I was a kid. Something...pleasant.”
Sign Guy ogled Jay for a moment, beaming all the while, then said, “Donzerly light.”
“Right,” Jay said.
A second’s digestion of the reply, then a fading gasp of doubt. “Nothing else?”
Jay shook his head. “Look, my parents taught me that you did something nice for someone if they did something nice for you. You repay them as best you can.” He jerked his head toward the change. “This is the best I can do right now.”
Sign Guy considered the explanation. “So your parents are nice people.”
“They were.”
“I see,” Sign Guy said, understanding. Seeing it on the young man’s face. Old pain, worn like the skin of a snake, shed for awhile but back again. Always it came back, didn’t it, some errant thought or innocent remark the catalyst. How sad, the bum thought, smiling. “Dead, are they?”