Issue 11.1 Fall 2015

11.1 cover image

 

 

The Brown Paper Bag

 

Sarah Greenberg

 

“And if we still can’t find anywhere?”

 

“Then, my dear, we will slowly wither away into the cruel and ruthless world     

around us.”

 

“Jack, I’m serious.”

 

“Then I will walk, you right by my side, to find us a place. Miles if need be. Somewhere with more than just the sun to blanket us in the morning. Somewhere we could call home.”
           

She smiled. Not the usual toothy grin that lit up her aged and hardened face, but a smile nonetheless. See it never took much for Anne to be convinced. At least not by Jack. She often pestered and nagged him just to see the bold confidence and determination she fondly remembered from years and years before. And she loved him for it. A rich love that was as unwavering as the red oak trees rooted along the city’s park.
           

The two had met just six years ago, almost to the date, though they had long forgotten the extent of time they had spent wandering the streets together. Past kisses and lengthy heartbreaks were danced over. Pay stubs and crowded pubs were dodged like bullets. The couple found such conversations dreary and disheartening. Unnecessary to say the least.  Little by little the memories of how things once were meandered their way into long forgotten corners of their minds. But oh, did they remember the uneven feeling of the earth under their weakened bodies.  And the fleeting glances of the briefcase carrying men who walked just a little bit faster past her and her husband. Off to work in far away lands of thriving business and lengthy meetings about the current state of the economy. A land where you might be able to sip imported whiskey with your boss as you complain about how business’s been hurting. During the first few years as city dwellers, the two had bitterly imagined this scene time and time again. Yet for a while, walking hand and hand through the vacant park, their thoughts were as light as the bags on their back.
           

Anne, a good seven inches shorter than her husband, rolled a wilted leaf between her thumb and pointer finger. It resisted her light pressure, holding its waxy golden form in protest. Unsatisfied, she brushed her fingers over the gravel road for another. The new fallen foliage kept her hands busy and off the fragile scabs around her arms. Her jaw slowly worked as she inspected the damage from a restless sleep on the ground the night before. She began biting her lip. Tossing and turning under sheets, she thought nostalgically, is much more of a luxury than she ever would have thought. The streets, unacknowledged by many, were often their beds. Their skin a witness to pavement’s true nature.
           

She gnawed lightly again and again on her peeling lip as she fought the urge to prod at the wound. If aggravated too much, the ones that donated to them might notice; homelessness was often a twisted beauty pageant of looking both impoverished and appealing to audience at hand. Losing the contest could mean the difference between a meal or a fast. Tylenol or a feminine napkin.
           

Jack and his wife rose from the dew-covered bench and apprehensively made their way to the boulevard. He chuckled wistfully at the awkward way his dear Anne walked. Old age had been a kleptomaniac. It took her balance, her energy, and graciously gave her “wisdom lines” –as she called them- in return. Yet Jack thought they suited her well and worked at letting his wife know as often as he could how beautiful he thought she was. That didn’t stop him from wincing every time his petite wife coughed and whooped through the crisp night. It had been months since her albuterol inhaler had disappeared and he worried about how much worse it was becoming as he rubbed small circles over her aching chest.

 

He loathed the loss of privacy that he and his wife had quickly discovered on the streets; to ask for help you have to be clear, persuasive, suffering. How he envied the sick that still held their pride close by their side. But Jack knew to survive he would have to learn the patterns of the public, how disheartening they may be. People always seemed to like when he wrote “God Bless” in bold black letters on their sign though he wrote it with absolutely no conviction. Ignorant of his agnostic past, the gracious givers blessed him and his wife time and time again as they stretched their tan arms through the window and into the hands of the needy. But fall was a little bit different. There were pumpkins to carve and corn mazes to get lost in. The well being of the misplaced and misdealt were swept away with the leaves.
           

Fingers interlaced, the couple maintained the sparkle in their eyes and continued to strive for a life worth living. Far from the local bars and cigarette shops that most thought they inhabited, Anne and Jack held up their sign for all to see. Each of their hands supporting the weak cardboard, they smiled coyly at the blurring cars passing by. The hum and idle of the vehicles made a symphony with the grumbles of their stomach. After what seemed like hours, Anne saw a car window lowering with a blonde-haired woman sitting confidently behind it. Careful not to get her hopes up too high, Anne made her way up to the kind stranger.

 

“Good morning, you two! I’m glad to see some hardworking and sober people out here for once. Pastor Dave has really been encouraging us to show our love to those less fortunate than us and I felt something stirring in my heart for ya! After I dropped off my daughter at her adolescent painting and sculpture class I picked up a couple things for you and your husband that I hope will help. We’ll all be praying for you.

 

“Oh, thank you so much miss. Your kindness means so very much to Jack and I. God bless,” Anne mumbled robotically.

 

Anne and Jack took the small brown paper bag to where they had been standing before, and patiently waited as the car veered left onto another crowded street. They opened the gift with care, knowing full well that the bag itself might come in handy down the road. Eager for even the slightest remedy for his wife’s cough or a couple dollars to find food, Jack’s eyes glistened as he noted its contents.

 

A wire bound journal along with a black ink pen, a pack of tissues, and a devotional entitled “A Life Rich in Jesus.”

 

 

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