Fiction

Prayers and Finger Sandwiches

by John D. Collins

"Hey, guys. Wanna see a toad? I killed it."

"Really? Cool! Where?"

"C'mon, I'll show you, I took this stick and..."

Joseph didn't look at the young boys as they moved out of his hearing toward the marsh at the end of the beach. In fact, he hadn't looked at them at all. He didn't need to; he could picture them — skinny, sun-browned legs poking out of baggy shorts, ending in ragged Reeboks or Nikes; gawky brown arms, unsure of when to stop growing. Just kids, like any other kids at any other time. Killers.

He picked up another worn, rounded stone from the beach and side-armed it into a wave. Sitting on a pock-marked, dried out log, he couldn't get much force into the throw; just enough to send it arcing over the pebbled sand between him and the high-water mark, enough to plunk it about five feet out, enough to make it disappear under the misty water, like it was never there beside him on the beach. Like it was dead.

God, he thought, what a case. Next I'll be crying over this goddam log 'cause it used to be a beautiful, living tree and now it's just a home for insects and decay.

Insects and decay. It always came back to that. It always came back to her golden hair and her bright eyes and her laughing mouth and the small, downy fuzz on her stomach. And then her bright eyes wide and her mouth wide and the look not happiness, but fear and fear and fear, and the reflections in her eyes not smiles but bright lights, and grabbing his arms and screams and screams and screams and explosions of glass and metal and tires howling and darkness. And darkness and darkness.

He looked up at the sky, leaning back with his hands strangling the gritty sand. He looked up at the sky and wanted to ask, to beg, to plead, please, please, give her back. Please. But who would he be asking? The birds? The clouds? The goddam Man in the Moon?

Prayer. His mother told him prayer was the answer; prayer would bring him peace, calm acceptance. Prayer would see him through. And, as they lowered her bright eyes and laughing mouth into the cold ground, insects and decay, he prayed. He made words in his head and he sent them out and up and he told himself they were being heard and that a benevolent, loving God would take away his pain, take away the blackness and give him back his Christine. And then the first, symbolic clod of brown earth hit the coffin full and wet, and Joseph knew he was talking to a figment. He didn't need an answer. When he'd seen the truck in his lane, when he heard the sickening crunch of his love being taken from him, he had his answer.

So he looked at the sky, darkening now as twilight drifted in on the waves, and he didn't plead. He didn't even curse. Why curse the sky? For being blue?

She's in a better place, they told him. She's happy now. No, he told them quietly, she was happy before. Now she's only dead. And he walked away. They understood, of course. His grief. He'd eventually accept that she'd moved on to a higher plane. They went back to their whispers and finger sandwiches.

"Hey, mister."

He thought about their last night together, how they'd argued about the ceremony. She'd wanted it in a church, of course, with all the trimmings. He'd wanted a simple...

"Hey, mister? You okay?"

He opened his eyes. He hadn't realized they were closed. The mist was heavier, closer. Standing beside him was a kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, wearing cut-off jeans and K-Mart thongs. The kid looked worried. "You okay? I mean, youre making those noises and stuff, and I didn't know if you were okay. You okay?"

He didn't realize he'd been making noises. Great, he thought, now passing kids think I'm a drooling idiot. "Yeah, kid, yeah," he said sharply, "I'm fine." The boy drew back, looked a little hurt. Maybe he'd said that a little too abruptly. "Thanks, though," Joseph added, more softly. "I was just sitting here, you know, thinking." He smiled at the boy and the boy smiled back. He wondered if this was the kid that killed the toad.

"What about?" The boy walked around in front of him and sat on the log to Joseph's right. The mist seemed to follow the boy, settle in around them.

"What?" Joseph leaned forward and wiped the grit from his hands, working it out from between his fingers.

"What were you thinking about?" The boy watched his face intently, almost like a doctor asking where it hurt. He looked more closely at the boy: sun-lightened brown hair, burn freckles on his nose and shoulders, one chipped tooth on top in the front, a plastic digital watch, too big, on his left wrist. But his eyes. His eyes were a bright, almost glowing blue, and regarded Joseph with compassion, and a sort of eerie knowledge.

"What's your name, kid?"

"Eric. What were you thinking about?" And the eyes, they wouldn't let up. Suddenly, Joseph found himself talking to a strange kid named Eric sitting on a rotting log on a darkening beach. But not just talking to him; he was pouring it all out: how he and Christine had met in high school, dated on and off; how they almost immediately knew they would be married. Even when they dated others they knew it. Jesus, he even found himself telling the kid about losing their virginity together in a room at the "Y" after sneaking Christine up the fire escape. He told him about the loneliness when they went to different colleges, the summers together, and Christmas; he told the boy about her mother dying, and how Joseph got drunk with her father and how her father told Joseph he was glad he at least still had him as a son; he told the boy about the house on Front Street, the one with the big porch with the corny white lions in the front, and how her father would help them with the downpayment. And, of course, he told the boy about that night two weeks before when it had all ended. He told him in wrenching detail about her face, her mouth. And then he stopped. His face was wet with tears. The boy hadn't moved throughout, hadn't seemed to blink, but his cheeks were wet too. Joseph was exhausted. The boy still didn't speak.

Then the boy stood up, walked around the log, behind Joseph, and put his hands on Josephs shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was clear and strong, reassuringly deep.