[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.So we will contact you as soon as we have any information at all.Promise,” she said, smiling at the young man.As they walked out the door into the snappy fall air Wesley seemed slightly relieved.As they approached the car, he even said, “That’s your name? Myers?”“Yes, it is,” Ell said.“That’s my married name.My maiden name was Swierdza.”“What?” Wesley looked at her, trying not to laugh.“I didn’t say ‘weirdo’ if that’s what you thought,” Ell said.“Sweeeerd-zuh.”Wesley laughed politely at her attempt at a joke.“What kind of name is that?”“It’s Polish,” she said.Their next stop was Hudson Lake Mall, where all the big department stores were, to get Wesley some clothes.Wesley picked out some underwear and socks and two baggy sweatshirts and an extra pair of jeans.“You need more than that,” Ell said.“No,” Wesley said.“I’m good.”“Are you sure?” Ell said.“The church put in some money to help out.Don’t be afraid you’ll break the bank.” She smiled at the young man; she remembered shopping for fall clothes with her own two sons, and this excursion made her happy.In the car on the way back to the Myerses’ house, Wesley’s thoughts jumped all over the place as they drove through the unfamiliar landscape, the suburbs, the unfamiliar trees and roads.His mind was a battlefield of incompatible emotions.Agonies of worry and panic over his mother, and SJ, attacked him like an ambush in a strange neighborhood.Then the imagery would recede for a while, diluted and temporarily supplanted by the process of the day, the undeniable reality of this woman’s kindness, which bore in on him despite his distraction, and touched him.Then the thoughts of home would reassert themselves with a brutal force upon his thoughts.He was sure his Uncle J would have found a way to get them out, but he would be beside himself until he knew something about his mother and uncle.They must have been worried about him, too.Maybe at that moment they were trying to call…At one point, because it occurred to him at that moment, Wesley asked Ell why she and Art had decided to volunteer to take him in.“Well,” Ell said, “it’s just what you’re supposed to do.When people are in trouble you are supposed to help out.That’s really all there is to it.” She looked across at him, then back at the road.“We all can do something to help somebody else.Somewhere somebody has done something to help each one of us, and you are supposed to give that back, or pass it along I guess you’d say.And, you know, in our church, we believe that Jesus gave his life for us, so if you believe that way, you are just acting by his example, but you know, every religion has some version of that in their own way.We’re all very lucky to be alive and we should treat each other better than we do.”Wesley sat back in his seat and watched the road.They arrived back at the house around five o’clock, scooting in just under the wire before the evening traffic began in earnest, the Albany commuters and the Schenectady people.They came in with the packages and, first thing, asked Art if there had been any calls, which there hadn’t been.Then Ell said she was going to “busy herself” making supper.Art asked the young man a few questions about the day and then they watched the five o’clock news for a while, still full of images of New Orleans, which Wesley watched attentively.Afterward there was still time before dinner and Art said, “Want to see how I spend my golden years?”He led Wesley through a door and down some stairs into the basement, a large, damp-smelling cement-floored room of a type Wesley had never entered, since nobody built cellars in New Orleans; the ground was too wet.Art had turned on the light going downstairs, and now Wesley saw a room something like a bunker in one of the war movies he had watched with his Unca J, but this one full of hardware under the overhead lights, woodworking materials that Wesley recognized from SJ’s workshop.Art walked around the room, tapping his hand on different tools, as if ticking off inventory.“Band saw…Jigsaw…Table saw…Lathe…Over here I do my sanding; I got her rigged up with oversized exhaust fans for the varnish; it’s nasty stuff first of all, and Ell’s sensitive to the fumes.Over here is for painting; double vises over there…”Wesley listened to be polite, although he knew what the tools were.Art took him to a low table against the far wall and pulled the cord on a double fluorescent light under a hood and it shone down on three wooden model planes, done in meticulous detail, and one apparently in process.“Do you like planes?” Art asked Wesley.Wesley shrugged, smiled a little.“This is a Spad, here.That’s a Fokker triplane, like what the Red Baron flew.”“Like in Peanuts.” He remembered that from the Christmas TV show.“Right,” the man said absently.“This is the Flying Tiger, and I’m working on a Sopwith Camel.”“What do you use them for?” Wesley asked.“They fly?”“No,” Art said.“I just like them.They’re beautiful.Or I find them to be so.”Wesley sensed that the man was slightly disappointed in his reaction.So he pointed to the jigsaw and said, “What does that one do?”“That’s the jigsaw,” the man said, turning off the fluorescent light and walking over to the high bench with the tool on it.“Like what they make the puzzles with.”“Well, yeah, you’ve got the idea anyway.Nowadays they make the puzzles with big stampers.You couldn’t work each one individually with a jigsaw; it would be prohibitively expensive, and it would just take too long.”“Why they call them jigsaw puzzles then?”“I think they just got started when some carpenter had a little too much time on his hands and decided to cut up a picture somewhere and they found out it was fun trying to put it back together.”“My uncle have a shop.”“A wood shop?”Sudden drop in Wesley’s stomach, sinking, Unca J…“Yeah,” Wesley said.“He has a shop in his backyard.” He was looking at the jigsaw.Thinking about SJ, or talking about him, made him feel bad suddenly.“Does he have his own business?”“Yeah,” Wesley said.“He make things, fix houses.I help him.” Then, looking at Art with a look that Art would later remember as sudden and frantic, like an animal that spooked, or a cat struggling to get out of your arms, he said, “You think I can make my calls yet?”Slightly startled, Art looked at the young man, with his scared eyes, skinny, standing there in his long T-shirt, and he felt a sudden rush of tenderness come over him.Yesterday, the abrupt response would have bothered him, but now he saw a kid a couple thousand miles from home, with nobody in the world.The poor fellow, he thought.“Well…let’s go see.” Then, out of nowhere, he looked the young man in the eyes and said, “It’s going to be all right, son.We’ll get you hooked up with your family.” Wesley looked at him, then looked at the floor, said, “Thank you.”“Come on,” Art said, putting his hand on Wesley’s shoulder.“Let’s go find Ell.She’s the boss.” And they went upstairs into the kitchen to find a pot of water boiling, unattended, on the stove, and Art’s wife of forty-two years lying unconscious on the floor.Three hours later, at Albany General, the doctor came out to the waiting lounge and told Art and Wesley that Ell was doing fine [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.So we will contact you as soon as we have any information at all.Promise,” she said, smiling at the young man.As they walked out the door into the snappy fall air Wesley seemed slightly relieved.As they approached the car, he even said, “That’s your name? Myers?”“Yes, it is,” Ell said.“That’s my married name.My maiden name was Swierdza.”“What?” Wesley looked at her, trying not to laugh.“I didn’t say ‘weirdo’ if that’s what you thought,” Ell said.“Sweeeerd-zuh.”Wesley laughed politely at her attempt at a joke.“What kind of name is that?”“It’s Polish,” she said.Their next stop was Hudson Lake Mall, where all the big department stores were, to get Wesley some clothes.Wesley picked out some underwear and socks and two baggy sweatshirts and an extra pair of jeans.“You need more than that,” Ell said.“No,” Wesley said.“I’m good.”“Are you sure?” Ell said.“The church put in some money to help out.Don’t be afraid you’ll break the bank.” She smiled at the young man; she remembered shopping for fall clothes with her own two sons, and this excursion made her happy.In the car on the way back to the Myerses’ house, Wesley’s thoughts jumped all over the place as they drove through the unfamiliar landscape, the suburbs, the unfamiliar trees and roads.His mind was a battlefield of incompatible emotions.Agonies of worry and panic over his mother, and SJ, attacked him like an ambush in a strange neighborhood.Then the imagery would recede for a while, diluted and temporarily supplanted by the process of the day, the undeniable reality of this woman’s kindness, which bore in on him despite his distraction, and touched him.Then the thoughts of home would reassert themselves with a brutal force upon his thoughts.He was sure his Uncle J would have found a way to get them out, but he would be beside himself until he knew something about his mother and uncle.They must have been worried about him, too.Maybe at that moment they were trying to call…At one point, because it occurred to him at that moment, Wesley asked Ell why she and Art had decided to volunteer to take him in.“Well,” Ell said, “it’s just what you’re supposed to do.When people are in trouble you are supposed to help out.That’s really all there is to it.” She looked across at him, then back at the road.“We all can do something to help somebody else.Somewhere somebody has done something to help each one of us, and you are supposed to give that back, or pass it along I guess you’d say.And, you know, in our church, we believe that Jesus gave his life for us, so if you believe that way, you are just acting by his example, but you know, every religion has some version of that in their own way.We’re all very lucky to be alive and we should treat each other better than we do.”Wesley sat back in his seat and watched the road.They arrived back at the house around five o’clock, scooting in just under the wire before the evening traffic began in earnest, the Albany commuters and the Schenectady people.They came in with the packages and, first thing, asked Art if there had been any calls, which there hadn’t been.Then Ell said she was going to “busy herself” making supper.Art asked the young man a few questions about the day and then they watched the five o’clock news for a while, still full of images of New Orleans, which Wesley watched attentively.Afterward there was still time before dinner and Art said, “Want to see how I spend my golden years?”He led Wesley through a door and down some stairs into the basement, a large, damp-smelling cement-floored room of a type Wesley had never entered, since nobody built cellars in New Orleans; the ground was too wet.Art had turned on the light going downstairs, and now Wesley saw a room something like a bunker in one of the war movies he had watched with his Unca J, but this one full of hardware under the overhead lights, woodworking materials that Wesley recognized from SJ’s workshop.Art walked around the room, tapping his hand on different tools, as if ticking off inventory.“Band saw…Jigsaw…Table saw…Lathe…Over here I do my sanding; I got her rigged up with oversized exhaust fans for the varnish; it’s nasty stuff first of all, and Ell’s sensitive to the fumes.Over here is for painting; double vises over there…”Wesley listened to be polite, although he knew what the tools were.Art took him to a low table against the far wall and pulled the cord on a double fluorescent light under a hood and it shone down on three wooden model planes, done in meticulous detail, and one apparently in process.“Do you like planes?” Art asked Wesley.Wesley shrugged, smiled a little.“This is a Spad, here.That’s a Fokker triplane, like what the Red Baron flew.”“Like in Peanuts.” He remembered that from the Christmas TV show.“Right,” the man said absently.“This is the Flying Tiger, and I’m working on a Sopwith Camel.”“What do you use them for?” Wesley asked.“They fly?”“No,” Art said.“I just like them.They’re beautiful.Or I find them to be so.”Wesley sensed that the man was slightly disappointed in his reaction.So he pointed to the jigsaw and said, “What does that one do?”“That’s the jigsaw,” the man said, turning off the fluorescent light and walking over to the high bench with the tool on it.“Like what they make the puzzles with.”“Well, yeah, you’ve got the idea anyway.Nowadays they make the puzzles with big stampers.You couldn’t work each one individually with a jigsaw; it would be prohibitively expensive, and it would just take too long.”“Why they call them jigsaw puzzles then?”“I think they just got started when some carpenter had a little too much time on his hands and decided to cut up a picture somewhere and they found out it was fun trying to put it back together.”“My uncle have a shop.”“A wood shop?”Sudden drop in Wesley’s stomach, sinking, Unca J…“Yeah,” Wesley said.“He has a shop in his backyard.” He was looking at the jigsaw.Thinking about SJ, or talking about him, made him feel bad suddenly.“Does he have his own business?”“Yeah,” Wesley said.“He make things, fix houses.I help him.” Then, looking at Art with a look that Art would later remember as sudden and frantic, like an animal that spooked, or a cat struggling to get out of your arms, he said, “You think I can make my calls yet?”Slightly startled, Art looked at the young man, with his scared eyes, skinny, standing there in his long T-shirt, and he felt a sudden rush of tenderness come over him.Yesterday, the abrupt response would have bothered him, but now he saw a kid a couple thousand miles from home, with nobody in the world.The poor fellow, he thought.“Well…let’s go see.” Then, out of nowhere, he looked the young man in the eyes and said, “It’s going to be all right, son.We’ll get you hooked up with your family.” Wesley looked at him, then looked at the floor, said, “Thank you.”“Come on,” Art said, putting his hand on Wesley’s shoulder.“Let’s go find Ell.She’s the boss.” And they went upstairs into the kitchen to find a pot of water boiling, unattended, on the stove, and Art’s wife of forty-two years lying unconscious on the floor.Three hours later, at Albany General, the doctor came out to the waiting lounge and told Art and Wesley that Ell was doing fine [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]