meetingplace

I had just seated myself at the corner table in Barnes & Noble, the only table that isn't overshadowed by the lamps that dangle just at forehead level and are easily forgotten until one stands suddenly and remembers, too late to prevent the pain and humiliation of knocking one's forehead against their mellow light.  My sister sat across from me with a stack of magazines, and we had divided a slice of red velvet cheesecake equally between us to enjoy while we perused our reading material in a shared, delicious silence.  I pulled a chair from the table adjacent and placed my stack of books there in order to clear some table space for my coffee, cake, and Joan Didion's Blue Nights. 

I was just reading her fragmented discussion of "the apparent inadequacy of the precipitating event" (for example, the young woman who becomes depressed and kills herself after cutting her hair) when an elderly gentleman commandeers the table beside ours.  He has carefully parted white hair and a tanned face, round and wrinkled.  I notice him immediately because, in stooping to place his coffee and rice crispy bar on the table, he forgets the lamp that hangs above him and whacks his head on it as he straightens up. 

Having been in his shoes often enough myself, I grin at him as he ruefully heaves himself onto the bench on the other side of the table.  "Do you want your chair back?" I then ask, remembering that I've stolen it. 

"Oh no,  no thank you.  You just keep it for your books," he assures me kindly, and rises to his feet--again knocking his head against the lamp and wincing, making some remark as to the inconvenience of their placement to which I agree, both of us laughing politely. 

He begins to stride away, and then turns and asks, "Will you girls guard my coffee for a moment?"  

"With our lives," we solemnly promise, and he nods cheerfully and leaves the cafe. 

Olivia and I exchange endeared smiles in his absence, and take small bites of our cheesecake.  He returns with a James Patterson novel.

"Ah, thank you!  Still here!"  This time as he sits he is cautious to avoid the light fixture.  We banter briefly about the food and coffee, and he asks us if we are college students.  Our conversation turns to our work, where it is revealed that he lives near the place we are employed.

"Have you always lived here, in Michigan?" I ask, hungry as always for glimpses into the stories of the strangers I encounter. 

"Nope.  I'm from Colorado. I moved here years ago."  He grinned.  "For a girl, of course.  My wife and I got married here, and I've taught high school for years over at Covenant Christian."

"Oh, our mom went there!" Olivia chimes in.  "Did you know her?  Tammie Pols."

He leans back and blinks, a smile slowly creeping over his face.  "Tammie Pols!  Why sure, I knew Tammie!  I lived right across the street from her folks, on Curtis.  She was friends with my girls--Laura and Beth.  She was quite a character.  Used to come right up into our kitchen and open the fridge door and ask what we had for her.  So!  You are Tammie's girls!  Huh!"

We all beam at each other, shaking our heads in delight, exclaiming the usual things one exclaims in such situations about the smallness of the world and what a coincidence and really how very neat. 

Of course, after such a connection had been established, we could hardly just go back to our books.  We tried for a moment.  I read another sentence, but my thoughts kept settling delightedly on the serendipity of the moment before, and when I glanced back over at the man he was looking at me. 

"You know," he said, "Your mom's sister--Julie, right?--she is the one that went to cosmetology school, didn't she?"

I nod, and he laughs.  "I remember one time sending my son, Evan, over there to get a haircut--you know, so she could have some practice, maybe earn some money.  Well, he comes back and he's got this baseball hat pulled over his forehead."

Olivia and I start to laugh.  "Oh no!"

Our friend's eyes are twinkling.  "His mother wasn't there yet, and I ask him, I says, 'So Evan, how'd it turn out?'  Your mom will remember Evan.  He was always very dramatic as a boy; still is, actually.  He took that hat and swept it off his head like this and says, 'Not very good!'  Well, he had really straight hair, and Julie had cut it so that it stuck straight out.  It might have looked good on someone with different hair, but it looked awful on him.  But I had to be his dad, so I told him, 'Son, it looks fine.'  And he says, 'No it don't!  I'm not going to school!  I'm wearing my hat!'  Well, of course he couldn't do that, and the kids probably made fun of him, you know how kids are.  But I had to act like it was all right, of course."

We chuckle with him and promise to remind Aunt Julie of the incident.  "How old was your son at the time?" I ask.

"Oh, he was about yay high--probably seven or eight.  He was a funny kid.  Yep, he's had a lot of trouble lately.  He had a real good job down in Indiana, but got a staph infection in his leg and he didn't treat it.  It turned into MRSA.  He didn't want to go to the hospital, but they told him that if he didn't he would die, his son would not see him again."

"Oh dear!  Is he okay?"

"Yes. Yes, they had to cut out a big chunk from his bottom, but he is okay.  Lost his job, though. They got rid of his department.  He's been good to me.  I see him pretty often, give him a little sermon every few months--can't do it too often, or he'll think every time he sees me I'm going to preach at him."  The man laughs the same way he had when he bumped his head a second time on those lights.  "You know, a few of my kids gave us some trouble, but most of them are living good lives now.  My wife, she died when she was fourty-four.  And I remarried--years later--and got three more kids.  Went through that whole teenager phase twice!  But they are good to me, and I never think of them like they're not mine.  I live in a condo now, my wife and I, and they'll come over and help us move the furniture in and out.  They are good kids."

The stories keep coming, and Olivia and I listen eagerly, amazed at how much he remembers of our own family.  One time he was installing some insulation up in the attic of our Opa's house.  He cut a hole in the wall, and discovered an old metal bed up there in the attic.  "Somehow your grandpa got it out of there--not sure how.  I wonder what they did with that thing.  It was pretty neat."  He paused, then asked, "So, how are your grandparents these days?" 

We flounder a moment, then explain that Opa had passed away six years ago of congestive heart failure. "Oma's doing really well, though," we tell him. "Walking every day, still in that house."

"Really?  Oh."  He is quiet a moment.  "That's what my first wife had.  She was diagnosed six years before she died, and they told us she wouldn't live long.  Good for your grandma, though!" He nods.  "My wife now, she works at a candy shop.  Boy is that good candy!"

Olivia and I exchange a look, saying over each other, "We should go there!" "We'd better not go there!" and then laughing in agreement with both sentiments.  He laughs, too.

"I know.  I work out, and it's so hard, and then I go and eat all these sweet things.  And I wonder why on earth I did that for, when I just worked out so hard!"

"You look like you're in good shape to me," I assure him, and he does: robust, healthy color in his cheeks, that distinguished white hair and those bright blue eyes.  I am quickly growing very fond of him.

"I feel good," he says, shrugging.  "Probably am a bit overweight.  Used to be I was really tall.  And thin, as thin as you girls.  But I'm 75 now, and I get tired quickly.  I just retired this year.  My wife convinced me to."

"How are you liking retired life?" I ask him.

He smiles.  "Well, I like sleeping in, and I couldn't keep doing all those late nights anymore.  But I do get to thinking when I go to bed, you know, what am I doing with my life now?  I miss the kids, too.  So I've started applying around for part-time teaching jobs to do, to fill my time with.  Hopefully I'll find something eventually." 

We express our agreement in these hopes.  After a moment, he begins to stack his napkins on his plate.  I notice that his hands are trembling quite distractingly, and he seems a bit flustered.  He smiles at us, though, and says, "Well, you give my best to your mom and grandma and Julie!"

"It was such a delight to meet you!" I say, beaming at him, and feeling as I do so a strong tenderness welling in my heart, a gush of goodwill towards this stranger who knew the strangers that my childhood mother and aunt are to me.

 I anxiously wonder if I ought to remind him about those lamps as he stands, but he manages to avoid them again, and I feel relieved.  Somehow it would have bothered me to have watched him hit his head again, as it bothered me to see how his fingers were shaking as he gathered his things from the table. 

"It was nice to meet you both," he is saying as he prepares to leave.  "Have a good evening!"

"Thanks--you too!" my sister and I chime.  He walks off the scene, and Olivia and I look at each other as the loud silence of the bustling cafe replaces his garrulous presence.  We both exchange cheerful observations on what an unexpectedly charming afternoon it had been, and then return to our books. 

As I pick up reading about inadequate precipitating events, I feel a keen sense of time and place, of having arrived at a significant meeting between the two, stumbled into some providential appointment.

Thanksgiving approaches, and family is on my mind.  You might call it an inadequate event to have precipitated the glowing intimation of God's providence and faithfulness that I felt as I gulped the last of my coffee, but its influence on my heart was nevertheless undeniable, and a cause for gratitude.