Simple Conversation by Jessica Stilling

     There is a parade outside, a constant parade. A kind of wartime parade of soldiers and decorated officials, marching metrically in cookie cutter uniforms. It runs up and down Wall Street three hundred times a day intersecting Broadway and Madison Avenue and heading straight for New Jersey. It makes its way across the map of America, crossing the Hudson and looping around Lake Michigan. It stands in formation at the foot of the Rockies and slowly dives down the Grand Canyon. The parade marches forward through middle class America and down into the glitz of show business where it stops in LA, at the great big Hollywood sign, where the grand finale begins with pearly white smiles and broken hearts, bleeding booze and bitterness. I drink my coffee every morning inside a tiny bagel shop nestled between two convenience stores on Wall Street. I watch the parade tread by in its early morning frenzy as it sips tea from paper cups and power walks against traffic.

     After the war, the papers called it Vietnam, when I was a little girl, just after my father came home I remember the parade they gave. Soldiers marched down the middle of the small town where I grew up, their heads held high. Their faces were expressionless, stone cold, ignoring the hateful cries coming from the crowd. “Baby killers!” hippies with shaggy hair and long, beaded clothing screamed, their fists clenched as the soldiers trekked past. My grandfather held me up on his shoulders as I watched my father march by. I waved at him with both arms flailing. I put my entire body into it, like a restless student trying desperately to seize the teachers attention. My father simply stared forward like a zombie. His eyes were focused, his body completely in tune with his fellow soldiers. I lost him somewhere in the crowd. The parade consumed him, it assimilated him until he was just another light brown mass of limbs marching through the streets.

     “Good-morning,” Javier, the foreign store clerk, greeted me with an innocently genuine smile. “Popcorn?” he asked. Javier always offers popcorn in the morning. No matter how many people decline it he continues to peddle the stuff, bargaining with anyone who will consider it.

     “No, thank you. I’ll have a cup of regular coffee.”

     “Oh si,” Javier replied as he handed me a thick cream colored mug.

     I diligently crossed the shiny black and white tiled floor and took a seat near the picture window. The city seemed vast and alert, eyes wide open, as if its heart were pounding a million miles a minute like an athlete about to finish the last leg of a race. Businessmen and women rushed by; their heads swimming with data as they took strides which were entirely too big for their bodies. The parade continued as I sipped my coffee underneath the cheap florescent lighting. The outside world seemed dim in contrast to the bright lights of the bagel shop. I watched as the reverend made his way towards the restaurant. He took long, diligent strides as he approached. He kept his head down, ignoring the respectful smiles and nods of those who passed him.

     A bell chimed softly above the door as a woman exited the bagel shop. Reverend Hathaway entered the shop just as she was walking out. He pushed past her while she politely held the door a few moments longer than necessary. Reverend Hathaway was the head minister of a church a few blocks up from Wall Street. He had arrived at the New York City church with controversy surrounding him on all sides. Some whispered that his last assignment had let him go early due to some ‘shady dealings.’ Others said he supported terrorist organizations in Ireland. Reverend Hathaway never acknowledged any of this. He came to the church shrouded in mystery and yet the people flocked to him by the hour. They toured his church as if it were an important Roman cathedral, until it became more a museum than a place of worship; people simply wandered in and looked around most of the time leaving without ever venturing a thought to prayer. It was the architecture they loved, the art and the history they wanted to take in. It seemed apparent that Reverend Hathaway thrived on location, location, location, leaving PR for the Big Guy.

     I watched closely as Reverend Hathaway carefully opened a package of sugar and slowly stirred it into his coffee. He rolled the package into a ball absentmindedly as he starred out the window. He did everything slowly. Every move he made seemed leisurely, calculated and sneaky, something out of a spy movie. Reverend Hathaway’s face seemed to be pure gray like cigarette ashes left at a bar overnight. He didn’t smile much. Usually Reverend Hathaway sat in the back and read the paper underneath the harsh florescent lighting. Sometimes he looked out at the scenery before him, his beady eyes darting back and forth. He seemed suspicious, as if he had been sent to watch out for something.

     Outside, in the street, businessmen and women marched briskly to the office. Traffic moved rapidly. Taxis zigzagged up Wall Street as silver, white, and black Towncars flew past. They all dashed by in a blur. It’s like when you stare at something so long that you don’t see it anymore, just its exoskeleton protruding out, holding everything in place, like the corners of a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes the city became so busy that it seemed to stop completely and molecularly break down.

     I’m a stock trader on Wall Street. I stare up at codes and numbers all day long like an artist digging for meaning beyond the surface. Amidst the blurry haze of the exchange, out there on the floor, the numbers are the only constant. They shine boldly behind the backdrop of chaos. They are like stars shining amidst a sea of black. When I was a little girl I used to stare up at the stars with my father, gazing up at them, believing they were tiny windows to heaven. “Wherever you want to go, honey, I’ll take you,” my father used to say to me as he balanced me on his knee. My father was a pilot. He flew bomber jets in Vietnam after college and for his bravery he was rewarded a nice high paying captain’s position with a major airline.

     “Never Never Land,” I would suggest, my big brown eyes focused on the sky with a look of childish sincerity. “I know how to get us there. Second star to the right and straight on till morning.”

     “Never Never Land it is then,” my father would say with tears in his eyes. “If that’s what you want then you’ll have it darling, just let me get my coat.” I knew he would never get his coat. He could hardly balance me on his knee without shaking. By then it was too late. The fire had died in his eyes. Even as a child I could see the emptiness swelling up from behind his dark heavy glasses. Even as a little girl the only thing I could do was humor him like he humored me. We played tug of war with our dreams, my father and I. We tossed around ideas and desires like a Frisbee we never intended to retrieve. Like all the other neglected toys left scattered in the grass, we left our dreams lying in the backyard at the end of the night.

     My boss asked us, the other day, at a meeting in a never-ending boardroom with windowed walls and light gray carpeting, “What are you passionate about?” It was a rhetorical question, a nice starter to a stellar speech about the Dow. The smell of leather and mechanical air freshener lingered inside my lungs as I contemplated his statement. “What are you passionate about?”

     I sat there paralyzed as the speech went on, slowly realizing my answer to his question was simple, so simple I didn’t even have to think about it: Nothing. My entire life had come down to nothing. I had become nothing more than a suit-wearing-money-making-laughline-less peon for Company X whose sole purpose in life was to outdo my contemporaries at Companies A, B and C. The evening news had me plugged into indifference; while the world certainly generated enough to feel something, anything, it only succeeded in desensitizing. Like most people, I sat back. As I looked around the board meeting I realized the reason my boss’s question seemed so rhetorical was because to everyone there the answer was naturally nothing.

     “I see the star, Daddy, the star we have to follow. Its right over there.”

     “Not now, honey, your father’s resting,” my mother hushed as she shielded me from his room. His body had begun to deteriorate; I could sense that there was less of him than before. The skin on his face clung to his cheeks and his eyes sunk into their sockets framed by dark half-rings. My father had been getting sicker for some time before we finally figured out what was wrong with him. The doctors called it Cancer. They said it had eaten away at his insides, taken over, like a nasty rumor it had spread like wildfire. Everyone wanted a piece of him. My father didn’t just have cancer, he had special cancer, the kind of cancer that required a lot of soul searching and freedom fighting. My father’s disease, we soon found out, was becoming more and more prevalent among his fellow GI buddies. When my father found out that many of his friends from the war had the same kind of cancer it made him angry. Faced with mortality he began to investigate it.

     The doctors called it Cancer. The army called it a mistake in testing and the chemical companies ignored it completely. History would call it an injustice, but history always speaks too late. History would step in later to make sure it had its own title and storyline. History would come charging in, as it always does with a fresh perspective three times removed, to right the wrong for those who were still afflicted. But then it was still just cancer. The chemical companies called it an accident, a mistake. Then they didn’t call it anything at all. It disappeared. “Poison,” my father called it one night as he sat with my mother at the kitchen table. “That stuff they sprayed us with in the war, it was supposed to kill plant life, not human cells.”

     “I’m sure now that the army knows about it they’ll make it right,” my mother had replied in her sweetest condescending voice. “They didn’t mean any harm, they were just trying to protect you. They’ll help you get the chemical companies who did this. We can make this right.”

     “Right for whom?” my father asked. “Right for your daughter who may have to grow up without a father? Right for the twenty-three-year-old kids who are lying in hospital beds right now hooked up to more machines than they have organs? I’m sure they didn’t mean any harm, but the harm’s done anyway.”

     I remember my father arguing over the phone with anyone who would listen. I remember the struggle in his voice as he tried to plead his case to the secretaries of congressmen who never called back. I remember the petitions he signed and the rallies he tried and failed to organize. Just a lawsuit he had said. Nothing drastic, he didn’t want to change the world. He followed the rules, got a good lawyer and put his fate in the hands of justice. I watched as endless meetings and phone conferences ate away at him. My father became engrossed in the fight. Justice was his only calling.

     In the end my father got nothing. No cure, no apology, no acknowledgment of guilt. He tried to put a lawsuit together, but the courts said people had already tried that a while back. There was nothing anyone could do. For his efforts my father received a lifetime of legal fees, an estranged wife and disenchanted daughter. He would see no monuments to his name, no recognition of the work he’d done. My father spent most of the rest of his life fighting a disease and the world. There was little time left for Never Never Land after the ball got rolling.

     I was about to leave, when the rain started. The same kind of thick, heavy rain that thrust the Ark out of civilization. Suddenly the sky was gray, and the clouds turned a coarse, ashy color before opening up. The rain came down in massive sheets, draping over pedestrians in one quick wave. The marching stopped, the parade disbanded as people ran for the cover of awnings and taxis stopped to let in water-weary patrons. “What are you passionate about?” Perhaps the last great adventure is the rush of out running the rain.

     Amidst the chaos of the pouring rain a lone figure emerged from behind the hill, like the sharp edge of a shattered glass. He headed swiftly down the street toward the bagel shop. He was wearing a blue suit like all the other assembly-line-manufactured carbon-copies of Rockefeller and Morgan. He walked with a limp as he came in and carried a dark red wooden crutch under his right shoulder. He entered the bagel shop with caution and held the door open for a woman with a stroller. Reverend Hathaway watched from the corner, his eyes burning daggers into the stranger’s skin. The stranger paused for a moment before he began scanning the menu. His face seemed soft yet stone-like, something chiseled to perfection upon Michelangelo’s marble. His high cheekbones and perfectly cut squared jaw melted nicely into his laugh lines. He had long blond hair that was wet and hanging in his face and bright blue eyes that seemed to reflect the intensity of his stare.

     “G’morning!” the stranger said with a soft Irish accent that seemed to roll off his lips in a waltz of the tongue and palate.

     “Good morning sir! Would you like popcorn?” Javier asked hopefully.

     “Popcorn?” the stranger replied through a surprised smile. “I guess I could use some this morning. Why don’t you give me a box?”

     “Coffee?”

     “No, thank you, I’ll just take a water,” the stranger said.

     “Oh si,” Javier replied as he began happily scooping up popcorn.

     I stared at the stranger for several moments before he turned his head to notice me. Our eyes locked. There was a moment of tension before he melted it with a smile. “Popcorn?” the stranger asked, balancing the overflowing popcorn carton and bottled water in his one free hand.

     “No thank you,” I replied. “I should be going soon. It’s going to take a while for me to catch a cab to work in this rain.”

     “You could always walk,” the stranger replied as he settled himself across from me. “M’names Blake, its nice to meet you.”

     “Charlotte,” I said looking into the face of this wild-eyed stranger. “I couldn’t go to work soaking wet. It wouldn’t be very professional.”

     “That’s true. I guess you’re stuck here with me for a while, “ Blake said as his eyes scanned the room carefully. “So may I ask what you do, Charlotte?”

     “I’m a trader on Wall Street.”

     “Ah, I see. Done anything particularly interesting lately? Any market tips you might want to share with a poor foreigner?”

     “My boss asked me what I was passionate about the other day. I’m still trying to figure that one out.”

     “Well at least he gave you an easy question. What’s your passion?”

     “Nothing much, I guess,” I admitted, surrendering to the blank stare inside my head.

     “Don’t be silly, I’m sure you’re just overanalyzing. Let me tell you a story,” Blake went on without pause. “One day while I was playing in a pond as a child my older brother dunked my head under water after I told him I was going in. He held me there for what seemed like forever. I struggled half-heartedly until my body began to realize that it wasn’t getting any air. At that moment my head was no longer in charge and my body took over. I threw my brother off of me and clear over to the other side of the pond. I cracked a rib that day and nearly killed my brother I threw him so hard, something I never could have done under normal circumstances. God forbid someone ever hold your head under water too long and you’ll see what kind o’ passion you got in you.”

     He seemed to stare into me for a while. Something told me he had recited this story before. His bright blue eyes gazed intently into mine as he finished his story. His eyes were so expressive, so alive, they reminded me of Michelangelo’s “David.” David moments before he slew Goliath. I remember the first time I laid eyes on “David.” I had been shocked at the expressiveness of his face, the raw, wild emotion of his pursed lips and squared jaw. He captured the agony of the kill so precisely one was saturated with anticipation trembling with David’s quiet anxiety upon first glance. One could see so much in “David’s” eyes, the intense passion of the moment reflected forever in his raw, powerful face. Blake possessed such eyes. They were the eyes of the first glance of a lover, intense, passionate bedroom eyes that seemed focused, needy, alert and ready. “So, you know what I do for a living,” I finally said. “But I have no idea what you do.”

     “I do a little of everything right now. Mostly just some freelancing. Back in Ireland I taught undergrad at a college in Belfast. I was a graduate student there studying to get my Ph.D. in European History.”

     “Really, did you ever finish your Ph.D.?” I asked.

     “No, not really, its still kind of up in the air at the moment.”

     “Do you mind if I ask why?”

     “Lemme just say Belfast is not the best place to be right now. The city’s been torn for a while. Things seem to get better all the time but then they just get worse. Its not really a melting pot, the Catholics and the Protestants; the British and the Irish we never got along too well. The classroom was no exception.” His voice trailed off as he stared absentmindedly out the window. For a moment he seemed lost, like he was somewhere else entirely.

     “What exactly did you teach?” My question jarred him back to reality. It took him a couple of seconds to focus himself.

     “History. I taught my students protest music, the anti-war demonstration, the civil rights movements and religion. I thought they really needed to understand religion. I really just wanted to grab their attention and sometimes it worked. But in some ways I think it just fueled the fire. They had their own war they were fightin’ and as much as I wanted to keep it neutral, I couldn’t keep it out of my classroom.”

     “What do you mean ‘keep it out of your classroom?’“

     “It’s a long story. Some things went too far.”

     “What do you mean?” I persisted.

     “Well, a couple of months ago all the Catholic students in town showed up to school but none of the Protestants did. I could tell because they usually sit on different sides of the classroom. That should have been my first clue to get the hell out of there. But hindsight, ya know? Anyway, somebody threw a bomb into the room next-door to where I was teaching. A couple of students died, a few of my colleagues were injured and I messed up my leg pretty badly,” Blake said pointing to his crutch. “I was a little shaken by it all and took off after the semester was over.”

     “That’s terrible.”

     “I just regret that I didn’t do enough to stop it. Sometimes I think that bomb was meant for me and me only, on account of my brother, who was a big part of the Irish Republican Army. But, I try to push that thought out of my mind, it only causes more worry,” Blake seemed to drift off then as if he were merely mumbling to himself.

     “I’m sorry,” I whispered heavily as I watched Reverend Hathaway get up to leave. I tried to say a prayer but realized I’d forgotten how. It had been years since I had whispered my last prayer at my father’s casket. I knelt down next to him and stared at his lifeless form laid out like Thanksgiving dinner for all to take a bite out of. I mumbled every word of the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary” distractedly. The words just came from me mechanically like the spelling words I had to memorize every week for school. They could have been any words, they meant so little to me then. I knew they could do nothing, those words, and so I stopped mid-prayer and walked away.

     Reverend Hathaway’s leaving seemed to startle Blake. He began to frantically grab for his bag as he watched the reverend disappear into the rain. “Well I should be off. It was nice talking to you, Charlotte,” Blake said as he held out his hand. My name seemed to flow from his mouth like a waterfall. “Charrrrlllote,” he said. It sounded musical when pronounced with his strong Irish accent.

     “Definitely. So long,” I said, taking his hand.

     He hobbled briskly down the street, his shoulders hunched forward with his left hand buried deep inside the pocket of his drenched suit coat. His long hair clung to his neck, matted and wind-blown as he looked out at the city scurrying around him. As he vanished into the crowd I got up from my seat, deciding to brave the storm.

     “Thank you, Javier,” I said as I handed him my thick cream-colored mug.

     “Oh si,” Javier replied as he watched me leave. “Good luck.”

     The water was cool and fresh upon my face. It felt like celery sticks snapping with a crisp crunchy sound as I crossed the street. The rain stopped suddenly, the sun broke free of the clouds; it illuminated the parked cars and dripping street signs. New York was once again bathed in Hopper’s sunlight. The brilliant white buildings shone brightly in an angelic light as I watched as the parade started up again. People emerged from their cover, and rhythmically they marched through crosswalks, power-walked up steps and signaled for cabs.

     As I passed the church I wondered how long those rocks had been there, standing as stubbornly as Father Time. The church looked like it belonged nestled firmly within the green hills of England, framed by rolling meadows and fresh sea air. Ivy climbed up the sides of it and green grass grew between its stone sides. Connected to the church in the back I could see a modern style black building, about a story high. It was Reverend Hathaway’s private office. One could approach it from the outside by going around the back. It seemed to cling to the church like a virus, interrupting its quaintness.

     Suddenly Wall Street was flooded with a sea of children running along in pink windbreakers and orange parkas followed by a few straggling adults. All at once a blast pierced my ears as I heard the sound of the church coming down. It was as if the universe had stopped, paused and fallen in on itself. The sound of rock and steel reducing to rubble trembled inside me as I watched the chaos unfold, dumbfounded. It penetrated my skin, grabbed ahold of my gut and shook me like an angry lover. The sound of sirens filled Wall Street as ambulances and police cars began to make their way downtown. The entire back end of the Church had come down. “A bomb!” someone cried through the crowd.

     “What happened?” I asked a panic-stricken woman who seemed to be running from the church.

     “Someone threw a package through the reverend’s window,” the woman replied as she stopped to catch her breath. “At first we thought it was a brick but then the Reverend yelled at us to run. It was like he knew what was happening.” The office was gone in seconds, as if the church itself had decided to shake off the virus. Some of the stone side of the western wall of the church collapsed with the blast but only Reverend Hathaway’s office was utterly destroyed. My eyes searched for any sign of Reverend Hathaway or anyone else that I might recognize as people ran every which way, gathering children and pushing others out of their way.

     I decided to walk to work, figuring this news update would certainly excuse my tardiness. Just then Blake appeared as if out of nowhere, wandering about untouched within the chaos. He limped slowly down the hill towards New York Harbor. His hand was still in the pocket of his drenched slacks but his suit coat was gone. He didn’t seem to notice the blast or the anarchy that followed. He simply limped along slowly, his head down. I watched closely as he disappeared into the crowd. I could sense him trembling like David with awe inspired anxiety realizing the blood on his hands. From a distance he looked small and hunched over, like my cancer-ridden father disappearing into his deathbed.

     The parade continued. It gathered onlookers and participants as the day wore on. It gained coverage through breaking news updates as it headed like a freight train into the heart of the country. It became a monument to all that was evil. An example of all that was wrong with the world. Blake ignored the parade as it marched boldly in front of him. In his world the parade had lead to bleeding bodies and empty schoolrooms. While my father had marched solidly with the masses, one with his comrades and at war with himself, Blake had made his own monument and then was gone. All that was left of this wild eyed stranger were my memories of “David,” the shining blue eyes beaming like the second star my father promised he’d take me to.