by Matt Moore
But Alvin, more than fifteen years older than his mother, sided with the protestors. As for ’Nam, Alvin kept repeating it was a mistake.
And unlike the young families that turned in early, Alvin was game to stay up until midnight or later.
“You awake?” Mary asked again, pulling him from his drifting thoughts.
“Yes.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Mary said after a moment. “What if we asked Alvin to cycle on?”
James let the idea roll around his head. He’d never considered going outside the family. Or, he had to admit, feared his mother’s reaction to it.
But lying there, staring at the ceiling, the idea gave him hope.
Over the summer of getting to know the older man, Alvin’s happy veneer had slipped at times. He’d talked about playing baseball or walking his route. Being young and strong. Endless energy. But he’d given up the route when the winters got too hard. Tried his hand at running a plumbing store owned by an army buddy, but the demands of lifting heavy boxes proved to be too much. So did his fourth floor walk-up in the city.
He’d thought a house in the suburbs would be easier but found its upkeep taxing. Even one flight of steps seemed too much at time. And he didn’t always trust his eyesight to drive.
“I don’t know how much time I got left,” he’d said once, empty beer cans covering the patio table. “When I’m gone all that’ll be left are some army records and old box scores.”
Alvin didn’t speak much of friends. Said he and his sister didn’t talk. So it didn’t seem there would be anyone wanting his soul when he passed. With some luck, Alvin might consider it an honour to cycle on. To take his own life before the last of his strength faded and have his soul go to someone he knew.
James would miss his friend, but the Cycle taught that Alvin had had his time. A pang of selfishness at using scripture he didn’t even believe to justify asking Alvin to cycle on weighed on him, but the thought of finally holding his own child pressed back.
Next to him, Mary continued, “I know your mother won’t approve at first, but over time—”
“We don’t need to tell her,” James said, hoping the hangover didn’t put too much anger into his voice. “We say it’s from your family. A second cousin or something. Someone distant.”
Her hand found his. “The guilt I have, even to this day, over lying to you about the Potsdam Dispensation,” she said. “It eats me up. I don’t want another lie—”
“It’s none of her business.”
“Okay,” she said again, squeezing his hand.
“Yeah, let’s ask Alvin,” James said, squeezing Mary’s hand back. “Should we . . .” He paused, not sure what to say. His mom would be a natural at asking Alvin to cycle on, but James didn’t know where to start.
“We could have him for dinner,” Mary suggested, like she could read his mind. “I could make something nice, tell him how much we want kids. What it would mean to us.”
“Alright.” He gave her hand another squeeze and she slid closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her, grateful. Mary went still, her breathing deeper. But thoughts of what lie he would tell that would satisfy his mother’s curiosity kept him awake. When his sister-in-law, Sharon, learned she was pregnant for the third time, Leonard had wanted to go to a publicly funded hospital. Find some poor, old person and buy their soul when they passed.
Neither Leonard nor James had expected this to be a problem. The church encouraged it. Better a soul be born into a middle-class or wealthy family than again into poverty. Less of a drain on social programs. One less fully ensouled person in menial work. Let a Negro take that job to work toward becoming fully ensouled.
But Vivian had called James, demanding he give the flame of his grandfather on his mantle to Leonard. She’d hear no other alternative. When James asked for an explanation, she described her life as a girl in Germany after World War I, telling him things he’d never heard before. The war had caused havoc with the Cycle. The peace treaties’ conditions had broken the people’s spirit. Flames were used as currency. Women without flames bought counterfeit translanterns. Souls split and split again as babies without flames were born. Who else but a half- and quarter-souled people would fall under the thrall of a madman? Her family had barely escaped when the country had fallen into war again.
So, she’d declared, this baby would have a flame from inside the family. Not a homeless beggar who’d ended up on the street because he probably wasn’t fully ensouled to start. If James didn’t give in, she’d convince his father to cut him off. And Leonard. At the time, Leonard’s car dealership still needed their father’s backing. And James and Mary would need help when the time came to buy a house. Not finished, her voice like ice, Vivian promised to wear Sharon down. Force her to have an abortion. And he’d be to blame. His sister-in-law wasn’t strong like Mary. James knew his mother could do it.
Before he could tell his brother about the threat, Mary had said he should give up the flame to keep the family together. They’d only been married a few months. They’d find another way. A fight like this wasn’t worth it.
James knew Mary’s parents were Christian. Though he and Mary didn’t attend church regularly, he suspected Mary’s faith ran deep if she’d estranged herself from them due to their conversion. So he’d given in. And spent four years hiding his jealousy of coworkers’ photos of their kids on their desks and pretending seeing dads playing with their kids in the park didn’t cause an ache in his heart.
Mary shifted in his arms, her breathing slow and steady. James released her, shifting farther to his side of the bed. Staring at the ceiling, he kept thinking how he’d tell his mother.
His parents arrived fifteen minutes early. “Are we early?” his mother asked, looking at her watch. “Why, I guess we are.” His father silently handed over his hat and coat.
Mary called out greetings from the kitchen but stayed there.
While James mixed drinks, Vivian started in on the young women out in San Francisco she’d seen on the news. Dressed in leather and denim, showing off their swollen tummies for the television cameras. “They seem so proud to be pregnant and not have a flame for their poor babies.” James handed out the drinks and mixed a new one for himself having had two already.
They’d already fought it out, but his anger at Mary for inviting his parents to the dinner when they were going to talk to Alvin still boiled. Didn’t it make sense, Mary explained to James, that his parents at least meet Alvin? If Vivian and Thomas liked Alvin, she and James might not need to endlessly repeat some lie of where the flame came from. Since Thomas and Vivian always left early, James and Mary could talk to Alvin after.
He could have refused. Told his mother they needed to reschedule. But in the end, he gave in. Like always.
The doorbell rang, cutting off Vivian. James stood and answered the door to find Alvin with a bottle of wine.
“So, Alvin,” Vivian said after introductions had been made, “tell us about yourself.”
Alvin talked about his life and asked about Vivian and Thomas. Vivian told him about herself, about Thomas, his practice, their life together. She was her usual self, but Alvin held his own. They got into it, politely, over ’Nam and Negroes and the changing times. James watched, sipping his drink and getting refills. This would not end well. Meeting Alvin wouldn’t affect her opinion of asking Alvin to cycle on. But he wanted a child more than his mother’s approval. And with that realization, a calmness that even the booze couldn’t provide settled over him.
It was like a schism in his mind cleaving his life in two. Before, his mother controlled whether he would have a family. After, he would make the decision. There would be no lies about some distant cousin of Mary’s or worrying over whether his mother would forgive him for going outside the family. Whether or not his mother would be a part of her grandchild’s life was a decision she would have to make.
He waited until after dessert. As his mother transitioned from one story to another,
James took Mary’s hand and interjected: “Sorry, Mom, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask Alvin. A favour.”
“Certainly,” Alvin replied, taking a sip of coffee.
Mary squeezed his hand, though encouraging him or wanting him to stop, he didn’t know. “You know Mary and I want to have a baby.”
“Of course he knows,” Vivian said, sitting at the table. “We’ve been talking—”
“And,” James went on, “we were hoping you’d do us the honour of cycling on.”
“What is this?” Vivian asked, suddenly still and voice icy.
Alvin held James’s gaze for a moment, then delicately set his coffee cup down.
“You said you don’t have any children,” James went on. Mary squeezed his hand again. “What you said about not being remembered really struck us. And how hard things are for you. So . . .”
“No,” Vivian said. “No, I forbid this. I forbid it.”
“Mom,” James said. And for the first time, put some threat in it.
“I will not have some stranger’s soul in my grandchildren.”
“I, um . . .” Alvin began, dabbing at this mouth with his napkin. “That is to say . . .” He folded his napkin, folded it again. “I’m a Christian, James. Mary.”
Mary’s grip loosened.
“I wondered if you might be, too,” Alvin went on.
“How dare you?” Vivian said.
“Mom—” James started.
“Young couple like them?” Alvin said, facing Vivian. “No translanterns? I wanted to ask. Wondered if you’ve given your life to Christ, but if I was wrong . . . Well . . .” He cleared his throat and stood. “Thank you for a lovely dinner.”
James stood as well. “Alvin, I’m so sorry—”
“People like you,” Vivian started, “would have us breed like animals. Souls dividing. People spreading too far. Using up our resources.”
“People like me?” For the first time, James heard anger rise in Alvin’s voice. “You watch the news? The population is increasing faster than the number of immigrants we got coming in. But it’s not Negroes doing it.” Alvin grimaced and his hand rose to his temple.
“Foreigners sneak into this country,” Vivian replied. “Dirty, no souls with no respect—”
“Take a walk around this neighbourhood,” Alvin continued. “Some families got three kids. The Sutherlands? They got four. Good, proper families.” He gesticulated with his left hand, emphasizing each word, but his right hung by his side. “Sure, maybe they had flames for their kids. Maybe. Or maybe between here and wherever they came from they lit a candle. Tell folks here it’s some distant cousin back home. But they tell folks back home they got it from some homeless guy here.” Alvin paused, placing his left hand against the side of his head. The left side of his face bunched up, but the right hung limp.
James expected his mother to explode, but she sat stunned, mouth set in a thin line.
Instead, his father asked, “Alvin?”
Alvin waved his hand at Thomas. His voice shook with barely contained anger, but the words came out slurred. “And resources? How many more roads out of the city and houses with huge yards we goin’ to build? One of the reasons more people are followin’ Christ is they’re seein’ the Cycle for what it is. A way to get rid a old people ’stead of takin’ care of them. Justify centuries of slavery. Justify racism and ’bortion. But people ’re—” He shook his head and forced out: “People ’re livin’ . . .”
“Well,” Vivian said. “Nothing more to say?”
“Alvin,” Thomas said, his voice steady as he rose to his feet. “You need you to sit down. I think you might be having a stroke.”
The word struck James. The son of a doctor, he hadn’t noticed the symptoms. He moved around the table to Alvin. “Let’s get you into the living room.”
Alvin stumbled back, the right side of his face frozen. “God pr’tect me.” He limped down the hall, left hand up, right arm lifeless. “Pastor Dean warned me ’bout this.” He bounced off a wall, unable to keep his balance.
“Call an ambulance,” Thomas called over his shoulder, following Alvin, a hand out. “Alvin, please.”
James followed his father as Mary reached for the phone. Behind him, Vivian snapped, “Don’t you dare! The Cycle turns.”
“Shut up, mother,” James said, motioning for Mary to call and following his father after Alvin.
“And no one is getting a candle?” Vivian remarked, still seated. “A coloured family could benefit from his soul.”
“I didn’ believe ’im,” Alvin was saying. “That desperate Cyclers ’d poison someone t’ get their soul.” By then Alvin had reached the front hall. He groped for the handle, opened the door and stepped outside onto the porch.
James and Thomas followed. The sun had set, but the streetlights had not come on. As Alvin descended the front steps, James said, “Alvin, we didn’t do anything.”
“Alvin,” Thomas added, “we need to get you to a hospital.”
Alvin’s legs wobbled stepping off the curb and into the street. “Leave me ’lone.”
Headlights caught James’s eye. In the dimming evening, he made out a big Ford Fury convertible, its top down. It barely slowed for the stop sign at the Fuller Avenue intersection and roared down Ridgeline Crescent toward them.
James charged at Alvin. The headlights swelled, massive. The engine deafening. He wrapped his arms around Alvin and they tumbled, wind from the passing car whipping his shirt and hair. Together, they landed hard on the opposite sidewalk.
The car skidded, clouds of grey smoke flying from its squealing tires, and came to a stop. Rock music from some British band blared from the radio.
“Sorry, pops!” the driver shouted, standing in his seat. His dark hair reached his shoulders. “Didn’t see you there.”
“You could have killed us!” James shouted.
A teenaged girl in the passenger seat, a tie-dye T-shirt draped over her and sunglasses so large they covered half her face, stood. “Hey man, Jesus forgives us. So should you.”
She sat down and the car sped away.
“Alvin?” James asked, gently shaking him. Alvin, eyes closed and jaw slack, didn’t respond. Thomas appeared at their side. He put his ear to Alvin’s mouth and chest, then ran his fingers along the back of Alvin’s head. To James he said, “Back inside, son. Get me your First Aid kit. Flashlight. Some ice and a wash cloth.”
James ran back to his house, noticing neighbours gathering on their front walks. His mother waited at the bottom of the porch steps. “Is he hurt bad?” she asked, an unlit candle in hand. James snatched it and threw it down the street before mounting the stairs.
Mary waited on the porch. He explained what he needed. They gathered the items quickly. On their way back out, James and Mary passed his mother, rigid and fuming. The ambulance arrived moments later. In a blur of motion and shouted instructions, the paramedics loaded Alvin into the big, white vehicle. Its siren wailing, it rushed off down the street.
The spectacle over, neighbours retreated back inside. James, Mary and Thomas returned to the house. Vivian waited, scowling.
“People saw you save him,” Vivian said. “The Cycle turns. It was his time. What are they going to think about you now?”
“I don’t care,” James said.
She glared at him for a moment before saying, “I thought I raised you properly. In the church.”
“A church that says it’s okay to leave a friend to die because he’s old isn’t one I want to be part of!”
Vivian took a step back, shocked. Gathering her composure, lips pressed white, she turned to Thomas. “Get our coats. We’re not welcome in this home.”
James let her go.
His father called to let him know Alvin was awake and asking for him, but the prognosis wasn’t good. “His attending told me he’s had a series of small strokes over the years,” Thomas had explained. “This one was bad. The hospital’s keeping him comfortable. But they won’t
treat him.”
“The Cycle turns,” James had said.
“Indeed it does,” Thomas had replied.
James asked about his mother. Thomas told him she was still mad but would settle down in time. She loved her sons too much to hold that much of a grudge. James wasn’t so sure.
Following the coloured lines on the hallway floor, James wondered what Alvin wanted to talk about. Finding the right hall, he heard voices coming from the open door of Alvin’s room. Peering in, a dozen people stood around the bed. The youngest was a teenager, the oldest older than Alvin. Half were white, the others Oriental, Negro, and Hispanic. Their heads bowed, a woman his mother’s age recited some kind of poem. The language was difficult to follow, but ended with “. . . dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.”
A prayer, James realized. He’d just heard a Christian prayer.
Alvin’s eyes met James’s. “James,” he said. He lay propped up on pillows with bandages wrapped around his head. His left eye glistened, but the right was lifeless. The entire right side of his face drooped. The group turned to look at him. Voice still slurred, Alvin explained: “Friends, this is the young man who saved me.”
A murmur went through them. James felt paralyzed, not sure what would happen next.
The woman who had led the prayer said to him, “God bless you, James.” She motioned for him to enter. “You are welcome to join us.”
“That’s okay,” James said. “I just wanted to see how Alvin was.”
“All are welcome to hear the word of the Lord.”
