“Mom? Do you believe in destiny?” I asked.
She shook her head and pulled a cigarette from her case. As she lit it, she closed one eye and shook her head from side to side, “God has a plan for each and every one of us, Jak. Look at your father.”
She paused and blew the smoke at her feet. As she looked up, she shook her head again and snuffed the fresh cigarette into the ashtray, “It was destiny. God’s will. Destiny is God’s will. Are you asking me about the girl?”
I nodded my head once and turned to face the hallway as I heard the bathroom door open. As Karter walked down the hallway toward the kitchen, I felt somewhat foolish for asking a question I already knew the answer to. My mother truly believed everything happened in God’s world for a reason.
Everything.
She stood from her seat and picked up her coffee cup, “If she makes you feel the way you say she does, it can’t be anything but destiny, Jak. God broke her motorcycle for a reason.”
“Are you okay, honey?” my mother asked as Karter stepped into the kitchen.
“Yes ma’am. My stomach is a little queasy, that’s all,” Karter smiled.
“Stand up and pull her chair out, Jak. You weren’t born in a barn,” my mother sighed over her shoulder.
I turned toward Karter and rolled my eyes as I stood. As I pulled her chair from the table she sat and smiled. Simply seeing her smile provided me with a level of satisfaction I hoped I would experience one day, but had no expectation of it ever coming to be. In being honest with myself and realizing this peace of mind hinged on Karter’s presence, I came to truly understand I was incapable of living a fulfilling life without her. We had known each other all of three weeks. Be that it as it may, it did not change how having Karter share her life with me caused me to feel. As Karter reached for her cup of coffee, I admired her freshly painted fingernails.
“Honey, hand Jak your cold coffee. Jak, bring me that cup and I’ll get her a new one. Cold coffee will upset her stomach,” my mother said without looking up, her face obstructed by the refrigerator door.
Karter turned to me and smiled as she slid the coffee cup in front of me. I knew better than to argue with my mother. I stood and carried the coffee cup to the sink. After dumping the out the luke-warm coffee, I poured a fresh cup and turned toward the table.
“Slow down, Jak. Take her this, it’ll make her stomach feel better,” my mother whispered as she handed me a small plate of sliced cheese.
My mother found all of life’s questions answered by a slice of cheese. When she was upset, she ate cheese. When she wanted a snack, she ate cheese. When she was happy, she ate cheese. She covered her left overs with cheese, and then believed she was eating different food altogether. As a child, many of my stomach aches were resolved - according to my mother - by the cheese she force fed me. My mother was not a selfish woman – in fact she was quite the opposite. But to my mother, her cheese was sacred. Seeing her offer it to Karter as a form of remedy to her upset stomach allowed me to understand my mother had truly accepted Karter as being a permanent part of my life; and hers.
“Honey, nibble on that cheese, it’ll make you feel better,” my mother said as she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee.
“Karter, did you grow up around here?” my mother asked.
Before I could attempt to change the subject, Karter responded. I had purposely not asked Karter of her upbringing nor did she offer. As a result, she never asked specifically of my childhood or where I went to school. The majority of what we had not discussed was a result of me not necessarily being completely satisfied with our age variance being a non-issue. It made no difference to me, but I feared the seventeen years which separated us may make a difference to her. If asked, I would be truthful. If not, I had no intention of simply offering my age. Her open admission of her age, by mistake or not, made me fractionally less comfortable allowing her find out mine. Without a doubt, in time, there would be no secrets between us.
“I grew up in Hartford.” Karter smiled over her shoulder.
“Connecticut?” my mother smiled as she sat down.
“Yes ma’am, Connecticut.”
“Brothers? Sisters?” my mother asked as she sipped her coffee.
“No ma’am. I’m an only child. And both my parents are deceased,” Karter responded flatly.
My heart immediately sank for Karter. Instinctively, I wanted to know more. I knew not to ask. Some things are best left unasked and unanswered. Commander Warrenson’s words came to mind as I sat and waited for my mother to respond.
Never turn over a rock if you aren’t prepared to discuss what may lie beneath it.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Well, Wichita is a fine city. For as big as it is, it’s also as small as you’ll let it be. You can come see me anytime; you don’t need to bring Jak with you, honey. Give her my phone number Jak,” my mother sighed.
She turned toward Karter and inventoried her from head to toe, “How tall are you, honey?”
Her eyes focused on me, Karter narrowed her gaze and turned toward my mother, “Excuse me?”
“How tall are you, honey? You seem tall for a girl.”
“Mom, everyone is tall to you. You’re five feet nothing,” I laughed.
My mother lowered her coffee cup and scowled my direction. Karter alternated glances between my mother and I, and eventually became fixed on my mother.
“Five-six.”
“You’re six foot if you’re an inch,” my mother argued.
My mother pointed to what she called the junk drawer, “Get the tape measure out of the drawer. Let’s measure her, Jak.”
“Mom…”
“It’s fine, Jak,” Karter said as she stood from her chair.
As if it was a common occurrence, Karter stood and walked to the doorway which led to the living room. As she backed up to the wooden trim, she straightened her posture and stood arrow straight, smiling. I shook my head in disbelief and opened the drawer behind me. I removed the tape measure and extended the end to the floor. As I raised my arm over Karter’s head, tape measure in hand, my mother stood. I watched as she opened a drawer behind her and eventually walked our direction.
“Here. Hold her hair flat with this butter knife, so you get it right, Jak,” she said as she shook a butter knife in front of me.
I looked down at the knife, and up into my mother’s eyes. I tossed my head toward the table and furrowed my brow. I turned toward Karter, and stared at the rule behind her head. As I studied the inch declaration on the face of the rule, my mother reached around me and pushed down on Karter’s hair with the blade of the butter knife. Karter rolled her eyes and smiled.
“Well, I don’t have my glasses, what does it say?” My mother asked.
“Five foot six, on the money,” I responded.
Karter thrust her hands into the air as if she had won the lottery, “Told ya.”
“You’re six foot if you’re an inch, honey. There’s something wrong with that damned thing. Always has been,” my mother hissed as she lowered the butter knife and turned to the kitchen.
As I retracted the steel tape measure into the case, Karter stood with her back against the wooden door trim. She looked into my eyes and smiled. Her eyes were a translucent green, and a complete compliment to her skin and hair color. As I continued to admire her, I became lost momentarily - simply standing in front of her and staring. She leaned into me and after a soft hesitation of uncertainty, kissed me softly on the lips.
Karter’s carefree attitude, fearless nature, and expressed love for me allowed me to accept life as being without fault. With her in my life, I had no room for anything else to creep in. In her absence, without a doubt, my life would be nothing but turmoil. Karter filled me so full of what was good, that the bad I had spent two decades witnessing never had an opportunity to come to the surface. Karter was not only filling my heart with love, she was undoubtedly saving me from myself.
“See,” my mother said.
I
turned her direction as she paused.
“She couldn’t kiss you like that if she wasn’t six feet tall, Jak.”
At that moment I realized to my mother, not unlike me, Karter was as big as life itself. I turned my head and smiled over my left shoulder, “You’re right, mom. There’s something wrong with that thing.”
I turned to face Karter and puckered my lips. As I slowly moved my mouth to hers, I winked my left eye, “Always has been.”
JAK. “Well, if a man looks in the scripture, there’s no reference to it. They took the time to make a statement about all other things a man can imagine. Stand to reason Jak, if there was somethin’ wrong with it in the Lord’s eyes, he’d a made sure and got it writ down in there somewhere. As a matter of fact,” Oscar paused and rubbed his goatee.
He nodded his head and smiled, “Sarah was ten years younger’n Abraham.”
“I’m talking a few more years than that,” I sighed.
“Don’t think it matters, Jak. You tryin’ to talk yourself out of it?” he asked as he pulled a cigar from his pocket.
“No sir. Just two men talking, that’s all. There are only three people I trust right now, Oscar - you, her, and my mother. And neither of them have any concern about age differences. I’m just asking you man to man, that’s all.”
“Well I’ll give you my opinion about it, ‘cause I know that’s what you come for. You see, life is about quality, not quantity. You know that, right?” he asked as he raised the cigar to his lips.
I nodded my head, not quite sure what he meant; but confident he’d expand upon the point he was trying to make sooner or later.
He pulled the cigar from his mouth and pointed the tip of it toward me, “Let’s see. Say a man is married for fifty years. Say he met his wife in high school. Maybe they was sweethearts. Got married at say, oh hell, eighteen years of age. Now they’s sixty-eight, Jak. And they lived a life of drunkenness by him; and let’s say he’s mean as a damned snake when he drinks. And he’s a cheatin’ on her and comin’ home drunk and slappin’ her around for fifty solid years. That ain’t a very good fifty years of marriage, now is it?”
“No sir,” I responded.
“And if someone like you meets someone like Karter, and they have the same age difference, but let’s say they ain’t you - for sayin’s sake. If they’s as happy as you two seem to be, and let’s say they live twenty years together. And every day, Jak,” he paused and shook his cigar.
“Every damned one was as good as the last. And they’s a runnin’ and a playin’ and having fun, and livin’ life to the fullest. Hell, they can’t imagine livin’ without each other. These two ain’t a fightin’ or a fussin’. Not even once. They’s meant to be in the eyes of all who see ‘em, and in God’s eyes too. So, God bless her soul, the lady gets cancer and she dies, Jak. After twenty years. Now would that twenty-year relationship be better’n that fifty year one where the man was a drunken snake?” he raised his cigar to his lips and bit on the plastic tip.
“I suppose it would, yes,” I smiled and nodded.
“Quality, Jak. Not quantity. That’s gonna be today’s lesson. I like that,” he said through his teeth.
“I like it too, thanks Oscar.”
“I ain’t done yet,” he growled lightly.
I shrugged, “What else you got, old man?”
He shook his head and pulled the cigar from his mouth, “Love Jak. A man once told me love was blind. You know what? He was damned sure right. Love don’t see a damned thing. Not real love. It don’t see color, or religion, neighborhoods, poverty or wealth. Hell, it don’t even see age differences for that matter. Real love just snaps into place. You ever had that black old heart of yours broke, Jak?”
I considered his question. I had, but felt no need to discuss details. A simple yes should suffice.
“Yes sir,” I responded.
He turned to the workbench and picked up his coffee cup. As he turned around, he smiled. Slowly, he walked in front of me with the cup held at his side. When he was about ten feet in front of me, he stopped and lifted the cup to his chest. As he raised one eyebrow and opened his eyes in a comical fashion, he dropped it on the concrete floor. The porcelain cup shattered in countless pieces on the floor. Shocked, I looked up. Oscar smiled.
“Now if I give you that pile of busted shit off the floor and a tube of glue out of my cabinet, you thinkin’ you can fix it where I’d never know it was broke?”
I shook my head and laughed, “No sir.”
“You consider yourself pretty able, don’t ya?” he asked as he began to scoop the pieces into a pile with his boot.
I smiled and nodded my head, “Yes sir.”
“Well, as able as you are, you couldn’t fix this sum bitch no how. You might get it put back together best you could, and it’d look like a cup; but there’s gonna be some pieces you can’t find, and there’s gonna be some others just don’t make good sense. You know the ones you look at in about eleventeen different directions and they just look like they belong to a different cup,” he looked up from the floor and raised the cigar to his lips.
“You see my point?” he asked.
“Yes sir,” I smiled.
“Well, that cup’s your heart, Jak. That’s what happens when someone busts you up good inside. You end up with a bunch of pieces you did your best with, and they make a heart, but it ain’t quite right. That fucker’d leak coffee on your trousers if you tried to fill her up. Now, to fix it, and it can be fixed; it sure can,” he paused and reached into his pocket.
He pulled out his lighter and lit the cigar. After a few short puffs, he blew a cloud of sweet smoke into the air and grinned, “You need one of them filler glues. The ones that go into each and every crack and crevice. That shit fills holes you can’t even see.”
He puffed on the cigar and blew another cloud of smoke in the air.
“Love Jak. Love is the filler glue. It’s why when you love someone, nothin’ else matters. Because the woman you’re in love with fills all of the broken parts inside of you, even the ones you don’t see.”
He shook his cigar at my face as he spoke, “When you think you love someone, and you ain’t sure, you got nothin’ more than a leaky old cup. That’s why you question the love. Because you got some pieces missin’ and some leaky holes. Me? I’m thinkin’ little ole Miss Karter’s done filled your holes right up. She’s filled your old busted heart with love, an’ you ain’t leakin’ anymore.”
I smiled and looked down at the broken cup. Oscar had an odd way of making his point, but he seemed to do so in a manner I would always be able to remember.
Oscar tapped the tip of the cigar against his lip and closed his eyes. At this point, I knew him well enough to know he was thinking about something, and he wasn’t quite done talking. As he opened his eyes, he puffed his cigar.
“Let me ask you a question, Jak. I know ain’t none of us lookin’ to get in a discussion about it, but I’ll make it’s as easy as a yes or no. You thought about the war since you an’ Miss Karter got together? You remembered any of the faces of them men ya killed, Jak?”
The three days before I met Karter were filled with doubt, regret, and feelings of worthlessness. I felt depressed and alone. Since meeting her, I had not thought about the war one single time. My thoughts, and my only thoughts, had been about her or our potential future together. Thoughts and feelings of her had filled me to the point there was no room for anything else.
“Haven’t thought about it once,” I responded.
He turned to face his work bench and blew a cloud of smoke into the air, “Go climb that tree Jak.”
“Thanks Oscar. I’ll be seeing you.”
Not if I see you first.
“Not if I see you first,” he laughed.
KARTER. “This is it?” I laughed as I motioned around the sparsely furnished apartment.
Jak’s apartment looked like someone was either almost moved out or thinking about beginning to move in. One small couch, a
chair, and a wooden trunk which was used for an end table were the extent of the furnishings in the apartment. I slowly spun in a circle and scanned from floor to the high ceilings. Not one picture, photograph, painting, or piece of art hung on the walls. Jak stood half the distance between the door and the carpeted living area and watched me. I walked to the bedroom door and peered inside. A queen size bed with a plain white comforter was pressed against the center of the far wall. White pillows cases covered two pillows. A five drawer chest was positioned perfectly between the bed and the wall.
Two on the couch, and one in the chair, that’s it. Three people, not including the bedroom.
“Are you going to bring in more stuff?” I asked as I turned from the bedroom.
“I hadn’t planned on it,” he shrugged.
“You don’t even have a table or chairs. There’s no art, no decorative flair, no plants, no lamps, no real sign of life, and no,” I paused as shook my head.
“It’s empty. You have an empty apartment,” I laughed.
“I have all I need right here,” he smiled as he motioned around the apartment.
“I beg to differ,” I said as I rolled my eyes.
My apartment looked like an eclectic collection of junk. It was no different than my mind – cluttered. I had too much furniture, far too many pieces of art, too much decorative bullshit, and too little room. Being in Jak’s apartment reminded me of a hospital room. Only the barest of necessities existed. For Jak and Jak’s way of living for the last twenty years, I’m sure he felt it was enough. Jak still hadn’t offered to tell me what his occupation was, and although I knew, I had yet to ask him. I figured in time he’d tell me, but so far he hadn’t. In the last month with Jak, I had become more comfortable with him knowing my age. Part of me hesitated to tell him for fear of not knowing what his response may be. Another part of me wanted to tell him and get it over with. I decided to do two things; make a donation to Jak’s empty apartment and go fishing for answers.
“So, I’m thinking I want to paint you a picture. What are your favorite colors?” I asked as I walked his direction.