New Heart Church

by Jim Barringer

  Chapter Two

  Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and walked back toward my apartment. Stanley opened the front door for me; I was surprised to see him there.

  “Good to see you made it back safely,” he said with a broad smile.

  “Yeah. It was uneventful.”

  “How was Leonardo’s?”

  “It was good. Thanks for the recommendation.”

  “I do what I can, brother.”

  Speaking of which, why are you out and about?”

  “Oh, I make the rounds every night, visit some of the older residents, make sure they took their medicine, say the evening prayers, all that sort of stuff.”

  “Do you get paid for it?”

  He held up his hands. “Oh, no, no. It’s volunteer. Something I do for God.”

  I was momentarily at a loss for words, surprised that a world-wise and intelligent guy like Stanley had mentioned religion. I hadn’t known too many people in life who took that stuff seriously, at least not until they turned eighty. Most of the guys back home who went to church on Sundays were pretty much just like me the rest of the week, so I never really saw the point.

  Stanley picked up on my hesitation and smiled. “You’re more than welcome to come along with me, if you don’t have anything else going on.”

  Of course I didn’t, but I dodged the invitation. “I’d like to maybe start unpacking, or something. I appreciate the offer, though.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  We stood in awkward silence; I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “I’m sorry?”

  He smiled again, a warm and genuine smile. “I said no, you don’t appreciate the offer. I can see it in your eyes. But that’s fine, it was just an offer. We’ll talk some other time.”

  Feeling painfully uneasy, I nodded to Stanley. “Sounds good.” Before I had the chance to cram my foot down my mouth again, I made a beeline for my apartment and shut the door behind me.

  As I lay in a sleeping bag on my aunt’s bed, staring at the ceiling with the streetlights shining into the windows next to me, I felt more painfully out of place than I thought possible. Everything I owned was crammed into boxes, which sat forlornly in the corner. If my room caught fire during the night, I and all my belongings could be incinerated, and it would be like I’d never existed. The lump in my throat from earlier in the evening returned, and I tried to choke it down, tears of helplessness springing to my eyes. Unable to hold it back, I covered my face with my pillow and muffled the crying as best I could.

  A gentle patter on the windows told me it had started to rain.

  The morning dawned just as dreary as I felt, and I laid in bed for a long time before summoning the strength to get moving. I knew that I wasn’t going to get a job by laying around feeling sorry for myself, and I was mad at myself for losing composure the night before. I wasn’t the only person who’d ever moved to a new place, and all the others had handled it just fine. I just had to maintain control, approach things logically and rationally, and it would all work out.

  Somewhere in one of my boxes was a folder with about 25 resumes in it, and a few minutes of searching was all it took to locate it. Armed with that and a copy of the newspaper classifieds, I was set to start the job search.

  Immediately, though, I ran into a substantial problem. I didn’t know where anything in the city was. All the jobs that gave their addresses might as well have been in foreign countries. I had no computer with which to get directions, and even if I had, my aunt was one of those strange people who didn’t believe in using the internet, so I’d have been out of luck unless I could tap into someone else’s wireless network. Sitting back on the hardwood floor, I blew out a long breath, rethinking my options. I guess I could always drive around and look for places that were hiring. That might not be ideal, but might also be all I could do until I knew the area better. Reluctantly I pulled on a blue button-up shirt and dress pants, grabbing my folder of resumes off the counter and heading out the door.

  I didn’t really have a strategy for finding a job. Obviously it would have been ideal to find a spot at a newspaper or something, a place that wouldn’t pay minimum wage, but I wasn’t opposed to finding a placeholder job that I could work for a few months while trying to find something better. With that in mind, when I passed a Walgreen’s with “Now Hiring” on the sign out front, I pulled in and asked for a manager.

  The manager was a cordial lady of around 50, with ancient horn-rimmed glasses that didn’t look good on anyone even when they first came out. She looked over my resume without any expression on her face while I sat across from her, hands folded, trying to mask my nervousness.

  Finally she looked up, giving me the same kind of smile she might have given an eight-year-old who asked her for a quarter to buy a lollipop. “Have you ever worked retail before?”

  “Not retail as such, but you can see that I spent several years as a substitute teacher and as a community living assistant for the mentally handicapped. I feel confident in my ability to deal with people and to learn whatever I might have to in order to work retail.” It was the standard answer I’d given, almost word-for-word, every time I’d applied for a retail job in the last four years. I hoped it would work better on my current audience than on the past ones.

  But the patronizing smile told me that I was to be disappointed again. “Our clientele does not consist of students or the handicapped, I’m afraid. We’re really looking for people who have at least six months of experience working in retail already.”

  Resisting the urge to bury my head in my hands, I forced myself to return her smile. “With all due respect, every place I go seems to tell me the same thing. How am I expected to get any experience if no one will take a chance on me to begin with?”

  “Oh, I’m sure someone will, Mr. Radak. I’ll keep your resume on file just in case, though.”

  “Thank you,” I told her, more sarcastically than I intended, and made haste for the front door.

  The rest of the day went much the same. I stopped at perhaps a dozen places, ranging from drug stores to grocery stores to clothing stores to even a warehouse, of which there were a ton within a fifteen-minute drive to the south and southwest. About half of them gave me applications to take home and fill out, and the other half let me speak with the hiring manager. Almost every conversation was the same as the first one I’d had. It was as if I reeked of failure or something. There had to be some reason that I’d now struck out on almost two dozen face-to-face interviews, if I counted the ones I’d had toward the end of college, and had yet to even get a call back from one of them. It was absolutely mind-blowing, and the more I thought about it, the more furious I got.

  Storming up the staircase to my apartment, I pushed open the door and slammed it behind me. What I really wanted was to shut down my mind and watch a movie, but my aunt had taken her TV. I had no connection with the outside world at all, except that I could look out the long row of windows and see it. In frustration I pounded the wall with my fist, and the pounding echoed three or four times.

  No, scratch that, the last few thuds were a knock at the door. I made my way over and glanced through the peephole, seeing Stanley standing relaxed on the other side. I undid the lock and invited Stanley in.

  “Rough day?” he asked. “I heard you coming all the way from the other side of the river.”

  “Yeah, ‘rough day’ pretty much sums it up,” I snapped.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Thanks but no thanks. I just need a minute to calm down.”

  “I know that feeling,” he nodded, eyes wandering around the apartment and settling on the pile of boxes in the corner. “That a guitar?”

  “Yeah.” I went and pulled the case out from behind another box, opening it up and handing the guitar to Stanley.

  “An American Strat. Nice piece,” he said, rubbing the word “Fender” on the headstock.

  “Thanks.
Dad gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago. You play at all?”

  “Naw, not for a long time.”

  “They say it’s like riding a bike,” I offered. “That you never really forget. Go ahead, give it a try.”

  He stood, handing the Stratocaster back to me. “Thanks but no thanks. How long you been playing?”

  “Oh, five years or so. Started at the end of high school, wanted to be in a band and all that. It never happened.”

  He smiled amusedly, looking like he was recalling some fond memories. “Yeah, it never really does. But at least it got you playing.”

  “Mind if I ask you something, Stanley?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why are you paying attention to me? Why bother introducing yourself, why bother coming over to chat?”

  He weighed the question, looking out the window at the trees blowing in the crisp December breeze. “I can tell when people have needs, boy. I’ve seen enough in my life to know when something’s not right with someone. And if you don’t mind me saying so, something’s not right with you.”

  “Like what?” I snapped defensively.

  “You really want to know?”

  “No,” I admitted. “But you’ve got me curious.”

  “Well, you’ve got no confidence. I can see it in the way you carry yourself. You slouch, you stand ten feet away from people when you’re talking to them, you just move like someone who’s not sure of himself.”

  “Way to be superficial.”

  “Look, I just call them like I see them. You were the one who asked.”

  “Yeah, alright. I think that’s enough for now.” It stung because I knew he was right, and I’d known it for years. Confidence wasn’t me. But I didn’t know how to build it, or even how to fake having it. I also didn’t think it was that obvious, but Stanley had straight-up called me out.

  “Plus there’s the obvious,” he continued, “you being in a new town and all, not knowing anyone, not having any friends. It’s tough to live like that. So I see the need, and I go to meet it.”

  “Well, thanks for that. It has helped.”

  He waved me off. “It’s just what I do, son. Course, I’ve got some other friends here in the building I could introduce you to.”

  “Who are they?”

  “People I know, some of them about your age. Danny Tucker’s the one guy’s name. He’s got a sister, Elizabeth. Pretty neat people.”

  “How many people live in the building?”

  He did some quick math. “About a hundred and fifty, I guess. Got a hundred or so rooms, some people living alone, some together.”

  “And where do you know Danny and Elizabeth from?”

  “Oh, I know pretty much everyone in here, except the ones who avoid me.” He chuckled, and I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

  “Interesting. Hey, while I’m thinking of it, do you know anyone who might could give me a job?”

  He pondered. “Not off the top of my head. I’ll rattle some bushes, though, see if I can do anything for you.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Anything for a brother in need,” he said easily. I wanted to know why he kept calling me brother, but wasn’t sure it would be politically correct to ask, especially after the joke I’d made yesterday. He stood to his feet. “Hey, you eaten yet? I’ve got some casserole left over, and I need some help finishing it off.”

  “Thanks, Stanley, but I really can’t. I’ve got to go grocery shopping sometime and fill my own fridge.”

  “Suit yourself. The closest grocery store is down White Settlement Road a ways.”

  “Thanks again.”

  He shook my hand. “Anytime.”

  As I pulled the Tahoe into the grocery store’s parking lot, the feelings of loneliness from the previous night were beginning to make a comeback. Grocery shopping for one was always hard on me for some reason, for the same reason that I always felt a tinge of sympathy when I saw someone sitting alone at a nice restaurant. Food was useful, sure, but it was always more fun when shared, and not having anyone to share it with only brought home just how empty the whole exercise was.

  Even under better circumstances, I thought as I pulled a cart from the corral and began my circuit of the store, grocery shopping could be fun. On a budget, though, it was quite the opposite. I was fortunate that I’d spent most of my college career poor and living off bland foods; hot dogs and frozen dinners had long since ceased to offend my taste buds.

  A few minutes later I ended up in the frozen food aisle, pushing a cart loaded up with two loaves of white bread, two baggies of chopped ham, two packs of hot dogs, and a box of Kroger-brand crackers that was half-off. That would be all I had to live on until I got a job and could afford better. No cookies, no candy bars, not even milk or soda. Sure, the stoic side of my brain chattered away with the whole “starving kids in China” deal, but I bet even a starving Chinese boy would get sick of having hot dogs wrapped in bread twice a day for a month.

  That was just my life lately, I figured, as I pushed my items over the scanner at the self-checkout. Things other people took for granted – friends, entertainment, a decent diet – were all things I was having to learn to do without. Surely a little emotional instability was understandable, perhaps even expected, right?

  So I hoped, anyway.