12. The Achilles Factor

The arrival of a new season can be misleading by the expectation that a particular date or event will automatically switch on or off a particular climate or environment.  Waking up to a new day can be similar in many ways. Jake used to wake up to a new day and be grateful that he made it through another night. Sundance would wake and get busy right away because he had so many plans. The first thing their old friend Ed used to do after he opened his eyes was to look out the window. If he saw one cloud he would get worried that the weather might take an unexpected turn sometime during the day. Jake thought that Ed did whatever he could to avoid mowing lawns, which was his job during the summer months.

 

Christmas is more than a special day. It is a season. Scripture and preachers write a lot about hope and salvation that last few months of the calendar year. That morning of the twenty fifth day of the last month expectations were always mixed in the Niebo household. One never knew what would be under the decorated tree, if anything. Some years were better than others for Jake’s dad at work. The number of ornate wrapped gifts would be an indicator of how Jake’s father’s work life was doing. Jake tried to manage his expectations, as sometimes disappointment became a regular companion. Surprises wouldn’t be surprise if the heart or mind weren’t jolted unexpectedly. He was slow to learn that gifts come in all different sizes and forms.

 

Sundance stopped strumming “Yesterday” as Jake continued to press the Black Beauty’s pedal to the floor and out of the blue asked

 

“ Did you hear about Michael Chamberlin?  I heard he signed up to go to Nam. Then he volunteered to go on some secret dangerous mission. Someone said it was into Cambodia. The rumor has it that he was captured and tortured. They said they found his head on a post along the path that was used by our troops for their incursion into Cambodia. Then I have heard that he is just classified as MIA. Who knows.”

 

“Who cares!”  , Jake grimaced.

 

“Come on let it go Jake. Just cuz he bullied you in high school for wearing those Beatle boots to school one day.”

 

“Well, the truth is that this punk and his brothers had started that whole chain of fights or bullying a couple of years before the Beatle boots incident. They were in the Boy Scout troop I was in and one night at a bonfire we had they smeared burnt marshmallows all over my uniform. So as I left found their bikes and jumped on their wheels and destroyed the spokes when they weren’t looking. The wheels were busted so badly that they couldn’t ride home. Eventually they all guessed who did it and started to threaten me at school saying they would hunt me down to beat me up. But they never got me until the Beatles boot incident.”

 

“But didn’t you get Michael thrown out of school for assaulting you?”

 

“No, that was my dad. When Father Adolph asked for a meeting with those involved with the Beatles boot incident and that’s where my father threatened to file charges against the school and sue them for not protecting me …since it was a private school an all. He also threatened to file assault charges against the three boys. ”

 

“Could he do that?”

 

“Who knows but my dad was pissed and Adolph was scared. So my dad insisted that Michael and his friends be suspended or thrown out. Michael’s two buddies got permanent detention for the remainder of the school year and Michael was kicked out of school. But he threatened to have me mugged by his friends when I least expected it. “

 

“Well, I guess he really got his in Nam then!”

 

Jake smiled “Yep, but if there was a God the Viet Cong would have skinned him and eaten him alive.”

 

“You are an unforgiving nasty bastard aren’t you? You were mugged weren’t you?”

 

“Yeh, but that was someone else and a result of another fight I had.”

 

“You are always in a fight!”

 

“Well, isn’t that what life is all about?”

 

(Time goes faster for some. Some are more lucky than others and some will always pay for their sins. It would be about twenty years later that Sundance read an article in Time Magazine about how that same Michael was one of the first prisoners of war who was returned by the Viet Cong. He had admitted to being part of the Central Intelligence Agency and was eventually captured again by rebels in Northern Africa in the early 1980’s while posing as a missionary. Sundance threw the magazine away and laughed.)

 

Suddenly a red bead began to make herself known on the horizon, larger and larger, slowly transforming the black canopy to a spectacular virgin blue. The rain and clouds evaporated from sights and existence. The river of history and revolution was also apparent flowing at their side. They followed the River Charles and sang together

 

“I love that dirty water….oh Boston you’re my home!”

 

It seemed as though only minutes ago that they left Fairfield. Sundance insisted on making one last pit stop before they would make entry into Boston. Jake thought that Sundance had a weak bladder but when they pulled into the rest stop Sundance darted quickly to the local phone booth, looked around to see if anyone was looking or awake in their cars and yanked out three of the poorly anchored phone books. Jumping into the Black Beauty he shouted

 

“Take off hurry…and I will look up Salinger and Kerouac. I am not sure if this book has Lowell listings but we’ll see and if we can’t find them here we’ll go to the library.”

 

Jake thought

 

“What?”

 

He had been lost in thought about Isabella and trying to connect with her while they were all in Boston and their original motivation he thought of trying to see Kerouac, Salinger or visiting Walden Pond had remained in Connecticut somewhere.

 

Sundance observed

 

“It’s early yet and I’m hungry. We need to find a place to eat.”

 

“There’s the Peter Pan Pancake House on Commonwealth Avenue in Kenmore Square”

 

Jake knew that place well as he an Isabella use to eat the a lot when he spent time with her.

 

“Is that anywhere near where Isabella is staying?”

 

“Yeh, she lives in 700 Commonwealth dorms right down the street.”

 

“Ya gotta call her then. Maybe she would meet us for breakfast?’

 

The inside of Jake’s head started to spin again. It was probably the sleep deprivation that was throwing him off.  He thought he just need some coffee before he would decide on whether or not to reach out to Isabella. He tried putting off responding to Sundance’s recommendation as long as he could. Sooner or later we all have to answer the question about what is it really that we want in life, or at least now? Jake remembered something about Billy Barrows’ comments in some of the Wanderers yearbooks about deciding and not deciding.  It had been years since he considered becoming a priest. What is the source of a true calling anyway? Sometimes one needs to listen with the heart instead of one’s ears. Sometimes we need to learn to listen to the silence as it speaks louder and clearer than any human or animal voice. Sometimes we make deals with God to help pass a science exam in order to graduate. His vocation would be left up to his bargain with God.

 

His novena ….

 

“Help me pass this exam and I will become a priest . Well I will at least check into it. I promise!”

 

When he realized that the exam wasn’t that difficult and passed with flying colors he sent off for an application to Holy Mary Seminary and that’s the extent of his “checking into it.” 

 

Edie Parsons soon afterwards diverted Jake’s attentiveness from completing the application to the seminary by baptizing him into the Church of Aphrodite. A new voice was heard. The intermittent skirmishes with bullies also kept his mind off the spiritual path. But sometimes he worried if God was angered that Jake had backed out on his end of the bargain. Jake wondered if that’s why he had difficulty at times with schooling or relationships with females. Maybe this was his penance. He rationalized

 

“God you let the Hebrews wander for forty years because they didn’t show their gratitude or trust for their rescue from the Egyptians and you let them wander! Or were they really lost? Anyways, aren’t bound to let me wander or even get little lost too! Right? ”

 

The state of being lost would become his perpetual purgatory. He was still wandering. His promised land unrealized. Then again maybe it was all a youthful dream.

 

“Whack” came another sudden Sundance special big smack on the back Jake’s head jolting his brain forward back to the matter at hand.

 

Sundance barked

 

“Just give me Isabella’s phone number and I will call her to invite her to breakfast.”

 

Well practiced at the art of  “what if” worrying , without hesitation Jake wondered aloud …

 

“What if she isn’t there? What if she says no ? What if she is with another guy?  What if we wake her up…. she’s grumpy early in the morning!”

 

“Just gimme the number and you can start looking for Kerouac’s and Salinger’s addresses.”

 

The sun slowly rising higher in the heavens, birds of all colors, sizes and formations careened across the River Charles as rowers muscled their sculls swiftly down river and duck boats cruised to their tourist docks near the harbor. Marathoners, joggers and walkers sweated their way along the banks’ paved paths monitoring their heart rate preparing to breathe one more breath,“nike.” Everything seemed to be running with the current down to the sea. Jake stopped and secured a seat to rest in the pancake place, phone books on his lap, watching the river flow as he glimpsed at Sundance wondering.

 

Jake was tired and found himself waiting again.

 

 

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