The house is just a house, but oh, the garden! It’s prettier now than when my Anna was alive, and it wasn’t bad back then. This is a good time of year, too—the roses are at their peak, I’ve never seen so many scapes on the daylilies, the daisies drift through the front beds, and will soon be followed by a whole symphony of coneflowers in their loud Southwestern colors. Little violas in purply hues have pooled in all the gaps below. In back the scarlet bee-balm is taller and grander than I’ve ever seen it, and I have big scattered choirs of blue delphinium, just like we saw in England years ago. I’ve tried and tried since then to get them established in our yard, not just because Anna liked them, but because blue is the hardest color in the garden, and no blue is bluer than a blue delphinium. I must have planted these, but I’m still stunned by the display. People walking by with strollers or dogs stop just to see them. I always watch to see if they pick any, but so far they haven’t. Something about these delphiniums makes people just appreciate the blueness where they are.
Musical things creep into my mind and thus my words, because I was a piano tuner at the Conservatory for most of my life. After Anna died, I kept at it for a while, but soon after that I began to lose track of the reason why. People said, oh Mr. Cain, the Conservatory can’t carry on without YOU, but of course it could and it has. I was going to stay in touch with people, I really was, but then came COVID and you know how that went, and more and more it was just me and the garden. Which, as it turns out, is enough. I don’t have much purpose other than that. I used to cook for Anna and me, not just everyday things either, although of course you have to do some of that. Anna said my butter chicken was about the best thing she ever had. But now it’s just me, and I don’t bother. I have lettuce from my garden, in big frilly heads so beautiful it’s hard to pick it, but if you don’t it will bolt anyway, so I have some great salads, and I keep an herb garden and later on in the year will have tomatoes and green beans and peppers. Then there’s the flowers, especially the roses. The smell of a good old-fashioned rose is a meal in itself, and I don’t even allow a rose in my garden unless it has that fragrance. I have good neighbors, and I love talking with them, but sometimes I think my deepest attachments are to plants.
I haven’t slept well without Anna. It doesn’t seem to matter when I go to bed, I’m up and down a lot. I doze off in the dark hours of the morning, but after I get up and make breakfast, and spend a morning tidying the house or mowing or weeding or planting, I’m ready for a nap in my La-Z-Boy. That’s when I do my prayers. I definitely believe in God, though my experiences don’t seem to line up with much of the world’s, so I don’t talk about it much, but I do believe it’s a good idea to stay in touch. I often start by thanking him for his achievements with the flowers and other plants, and for my years with Anna, and would he watch over our children far away. I have specifically thanked him for the delphiniums. I don’t ask for too much, that’s not what friends do. Sometimes I make it all the way to “Amen”, but mostly I’m asleep before it happens. God has never seemed to mind—my life isn’t exciting, but sometimes I think of the verse “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance,” and honest and truly, that’s how it is.
I don’t dream at night, but boy, those daytime naps are sometimes nothing but dreams. Maybe it’s because I’m sitting up, who knows. Most often my dreams make no sense at all, and if I remember them even a little they soon tatter and melt away. But that one day, I had a dream that didn’t seem like it was my dream at all, more like a dream from someone else that just happened to be screening in my head. And I certainly remembered it, as in, every word.
There was a voice, belonging to a pleasant youngish man, a man who liked life and made you feel the same way. You could tell he was used to being in charge, but not in an arrogant way, more like there were things to get done, and he could use your help to make it happen. I knew all this without seeing him, don’t ask me how, you know how dreams can be. Anyway, he said, “I can give you two weeks to gather things for me. Have them all on your deck on June 22nd, we have the connection set up, and you be there too. Dress for warm.”
“I think I will start,” he said, “with seeds. Get some tomato seeds, a bunch of different kinds, I know I like Cherokee Purple. Also peppers, sweet, and hot, and jalapeños. Have you heard of a kind called Jimmy Nardello? I want to try that. Also a pack of lettuce seeds that has an assortment of varieties, the greens here are so tough, some green beans, and some potatoes to plant. And please, a decent pair of scissors, anything even from Walgreens is better than here. Some needles and a few colors of thread. You’d probably appreciate a couple of lightweight, large buckets, even 5-gallon ones. Forks, maybe twenty. DuraFlame Insta-Match lighters, at least a dozen. A cast-iron skillet, not too big, and a Dutch oven. A red zonal geranium in a pot, the nicest one you can find, and a Mr. Lincoln rose bush. You’ll probably want to bring a decent set of kitchen knives, whatever appeals to you. 24 large plain white handkerchiefs. A dozen men’s white undershirts, 44 chest, V-neck. Important they be extra tall. Um, maybe a bag of potato chips, let’s go with Ruffles Original, might as well do party size.” Pause. “I really would like a Guild D25 guitar, cutaway if you can, a few sets of size 12 phosphor bronze strings, a tuning fork, hard case. Maybe something to go with that. A concertina? No, how about a Hohner button melodeon in G, tuned a little dry, just not too big. A case of Laphroaig 10-year Cask Strength scotch, and whisky tumblers, I’m told they come in sets of 4 usually so I’ll say 4 sets. I know this is asking a lot, but I would like a black lab puppy, either sex, I’ll come up with everything it needs, so just the dog is good. Two coffee mugs, some coffee beans, whatever kind you like, a Chemex coffee maker, and a few hundred filters. Maybe a gooseneck kettle, too, to make things easier. I’m only asking this next to annoy some friends, but pick up an assortment of fish hooks and nylon line. At least one disposable razor. Oh, and some navel oranges would be nice—a bag, I guess?”
I started to ask a question, but he cut me off. “Ask it after I’m done. There’s more. I would really love two pairs of Allbirds Tree Runner shoes, size 11, one in grey, one in what they call Lux Purple if you can get them, otherwise, any neutral color. A pair of Crocs, beige or gray, size 11. I think having a bible would help my game here, let’s say New International, smaller is better. Oh yeah, and a decent pillow, soft but not too soft. Make that two pillows. And right before we get together, please call Tres Potrillos and have them deliver an order of Pollo Yucatan, with white rice. Or maybe pick it up? No, you’ll have the puppy. Do Doordash or whatever they use. That should be enough.”
How on earth, I began, not speaking, thinking inside my head, because it’s a dream, and he said, “Just do your best. I’ll do what I can to help.” I’m not going to remember it, said my head. “I’ll have my staff put it on your desk.” Isn’t this going to— “Yes, but again, I’ll have my guys put money in your account. It won’t be a problem.” Don’t you even need— “Nope. We have your account and routing numbers, but our methods don’t even need those.” I deliberately kept myself from thinking of their methods, because some things you don’t want to find out.
“Well, I’ll get out of your head,” he said. “Welterusten. Slaap lekker.” Which was a nice thing to say. Anna used to say it to me before I went to sleep, and where she’s from it’s something like good night and enjoy your sleep. I mean, technically, I was asleep, but after this I don’t remember a thing for a while, and it was one of those foggy, wonderful sleeps that you wake up from feeling great.
I suppose I could have bailed on the whole thing right then, but I was too curious to not check my desk, and there it was, the list. Well, not even a list, more like a play-by-play transcript of the whole thing, including the June 22nd thing, and this was June 10th. The most curious thing was, whatever “staff” was handling this part wrote it out with a gel pen on my paper, in my handwriting. Or, what my handwriting used to look like before the hand tremors made it impossible to write like that any more. At first that was just spooky, because—well, do I have to explain? But then, and I know I’m weird for feeling this way, I began to think it was a very kind thing to do, because I always liked my handwriting, especially with a gel pen, and I haven’t seen it for a very long time. I couldn’t do it these days if I wanted to, and here somebody thought of it and went to the trouble just to make me feel a little comfortable. I think it was at that point that I was all in, as we used to say back when LeBron was on the Cavs. And isn’t that funny? It would have been perfectly justifiable to run out of the house screaming and never come back, and instead, it was like at that moment I joined the team 100%. Looking back, the word “crazy” does come to mind, but instead, I was calm and ready to get to work, and it was the handwriting that did it. I was dealing with professionals.
I mean, what else did I have to do, really? And this was kind of up my alley, although the dog was going to be a challenge, I didn’t drink scotch, and I had no idea what a melodeon even was, although I know Hohner makes harmonicas. Anna always said I was methodical, probably because that’s how you had to approach piano work, so, at 2:55 PM on June 10th, I began coming up with a plan of attack.
The first thing was to organize the list. Having it word for word was valuable, but way too random for any kind of efficiency. But really, it was just a shopping list, and part of that was a grocery list. I could knock out a large part of it tomorrow at Uncle John’s Plant Farm, my favorite garden center, the seeds and potatoes and plants. A trip to Walmart or Target would take care of the mugs (although, hmm, I have a couple favorite mugs here, and my friend didn’t actually say they had to be new), the groceries, forks, handkerchiefs (do stores even carry those in 2022, though?), scissors, lighters, fishing gear, buckets, needles and thread, a pillow, and maybe even the bible and tumblers. I get coffee beans at Starbucks, my favorite definitely being Guatemala Antigua. I was pretty sure I would have to order the shoes and the Chemex stuff, but that’s easy in this day and age.
The challenges would be:
The Laphroaig.
The guitar.
The melodeon, whatever it was.
The dog. A dog! “I’ll come up with everything it needs,” Mr. Dream Man said, but the hard part was the dog itself.
The Pollo Yucatan, because Tres Potrillos absolutely did not deliver, and it would be coming from Medina.
Also, four of those challenges sounded very expensive.
It was now 3:50. Sane men would have lost interest, but I was just getting warmed up, although in the background I was also running through the possibilities of whom it was I was dealing with. Something with technical powers that blurred with the magical, which pretty much limited the field to aliens or gods. Not even Apple or Google could pull off dream communication, yet. Right?
Why didn’t this bother me? Nowadays I ask myself that over and over again, but the next development sealed my cooperation once and for all.
I work well numerically, which meant starting with the scotch. After some calling, I was able to determine that you could get Laphroaig at all kinds of places in Ohio under the aegis of the Division of Liquor Control, but not cask strength. I wondered if that even mattered, so I went back to check the wording of the list. Where it said, Laphroaig 10-year Cask Strength scotch, there was now added the phrase, “and I do mean Cask Strength”.
Cliché alert: a chill ran up my spine. But it was more like a roller coaster chill than a footsteps-of-evil chill. I was thrilled to be in the presence of beings with chops like these, and if I was game ten seconds before, I was spine-of-steel determined now. I began to think, at my advanced age, that life’s fun was just beginning, and possibly even its purpose. If I was being scammed, I wanted the world to know that I had been singled out for the absolutely most magnificent scam in Christendom, and beyond.
OK, who even cared about state regulations at this point? Whoever I was aligned with now made the DLC look like the Division of Lawn Control. So, I called California, and found someone who had one case of six Laphroaig they could send me, and offered for the second case six bottles of Ardbeg for somewhat less, whatever an Ardbeg is. I looked at it online, and all I can say is, they had a very nice font on the label. I checked my list.
Ardbeg is fine, but get the Uigeadail. And yes, GREAT label.
It is a symptom of my unhinged state that my only reaction was, this could be very handy, and I ordered the scotch. Do you want to know how much 12 bottles of single-malt scotch from the Isle of Islay cost? With taxes, fees, shipping, and insurance, it was $1340.00. How do you wish to pay? I quickly went to my online bank statement.
There was a deposit of $1340.00. Dated June 9, in case you wondered, which is absolutely, completely impossible.
I put it on my credit card, and regretted not having anyone to high-five.
Then, on a roll, I started looking for guitars. What I learned is, my client (more like “boss”) had pretty specific taste. The Guild D25 is now a vintage guitar in some demand, and the cutaway model, should you even find one, was only made in 1983–1984. So I went from knowing nothing about Guild guitars to knowing that I was clearly not going to find one at the local Guitar Center. To cut to the chase, I found one on a site called Reverb, and ordered it with a hard case, after checking my bank balance again.
I thought that was enough accomplished for one day out of 12 remaining. I picked and cleaned some lettuce and made a salad for supper. I made plans to go shopping the next day, and eventually went to bed at 10, at which point you will be disappointed to know I slept without dreaming till 6:30 in the morning.
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It turns out a melodeon is a button accordion. Not a Polka Varieties instrument, but one designed for English/Irish/Scottish/continental folk music. They even march with them. Very hard to find in the U.S. I could get one in England, but I wasn't sure it would ship in time. I kept trying, and to my amazement found a guy in Rochester who works on them and had a restored Hohner in the right key called a Merlin. He played it over the phone for me and it sounded fine. I asked about “a little dry”, and he said it had to do with the tuning, how much vibrato there is, and that the Merlin was a little dry by design, so I didn’t even check the list, I just ordered it, and it would be on my porch in four or five days.
I did the rounds of stores I needed to go to, Target (which even had a Starbucks inside), Dillard’s for the tall t-shirts, Uncle John’s Plant Farm, Guitar Center for strings. I ordered the shoes online (even snagged the purple!), also the tuning fork. Phoenix Coffee downtown had the Chemex stuff, I preferred picking things up in person just so I knew I’d have them. I bought another pound of beans there, too. I would get the oranges and Ruffles closer to the date, and I have a nice little compact NIV bible that I rarely use, in a green tooled leather case, and I thought that would be just fine. The list backed me up.
That brings up something, I thought, for the benefit of whoever my contact was. Do we have to do the mind-reading thing? It’s invasive, to say the least. I got no answer on the list, but in my head, with no words exchanged, it was clear that it would be to the advantage of the whole enterprise if we kept it up for now, at least till D-day, or whatever we’re calling the deadline. I decided I could deal with that. I have some control over my thoughts, after all, I’ve practiced over the years. Not in dreams, though; they will just have to be what they are. You’re going to need me for the next part anyway, said the voice that wasn’t a voice.
I was left with the task I’d been putting off: finding the dog. I’d had dogs, I’d even thought about getting one now that I was on my own. But where do I find the right puppy in 11 days? I know enough to steer clear from pet stores. I found the names of a few breeders and called some, but like all reputable breeders they wanted to know more about the home their dog would be going to, and at first I wasn’t very forthcoming, I admit, and I kind of blew the interviews. I came up with a story that I wanted a dog for companionship, and that’s a normal enough thing and not a lie, but then there were concerns about my age, which was a little depressing, because I don’t think I look or act all that old, but these people were picking up on it just from my voice over the phone. I had run through nearly the whole list when I came across a kennel in Medina, and something vague in my head gave me the notion that this was a good direction. So I called and got Marge, the owner, who listened to my story with the right amount of interest.
“What made you think of a black Lab?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve known a few, and they’re just good, all-around Joe Dogs,” I said. “I think they’d be easier than other breeds.”
“It might be easier for you to get an older mutt from a rescue group,” she said. She mercifully left unsaid the phrase at your age. “They take care of a lot of the details, and everybody benefits, even the dog.”
Well, I had my specific marching orders, but I could hardly explain that to this lady. She was actually being very helpful. I looked at my list. At first I thought it said Goon, which seemed accurate but was not helpful, but then I realized it said, Go on.
“I’m getting older, and this will be my last dog. I want to experience what a young dog can bring, one last time. I know they’re a lot of work, but I get around OK and I have time. And as far as a mixed breed, I’m in favor, but I really like black Labs, and again, it’s kind of my last chance to choose a dog.” Go on changed to Good, before my eyes.
Silence on the phone. Then she said, “Well, I might have a situation here that could work, and you can let me know what you think. We raise dogs for show, and of course most of them become pets, but what I’m saying is that looks matter. We have a female here who has a good-sized white patch on her chest. And yes, AKC says you can show them that way, but they never win, so we don’t use them in our breeding, and it’s been hard to find her a home. But she’s such a sweetheart! She’s just under a year old, and we had her spayed about a month ago, which is not our normal thing, but she’s an unusual situation. Maybe you’d like to come down and see her. She’s completely house-trained. For some reason we never had her chipped, but you could do that.” Not a puppy then, hmm. I looked at my paper. Good changed to All good.
“You know what?” I said. “That sounds kind of perfect. She’s still a young dog. I’d have to see her, of course.”
“Of course. Well, are you free tomorrow? Glory and I will be here all day.”
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That was her name, Glory. When she was born, she already had the white patch, and the woman’s mother looked at her and said, “Glory be!” and that was that. And yes, she was a sweetheart. Not super-affectionate in a slobbery way, but warm and friendly and happy to be petted. I rubbed her white patch, and she stuck her nose in my face. She had all her shots, including Lyme disease. I had no idea how important that was, but it was one less thing to worry about. I bought her on the spot, and we arranged a date to pick her up. The lady had told me to show up with a leash and what size crate to have, and what food she was used to. I seemed to know enough about the routine of owning a dog to pass all the tests. The next day, I bought what we needed, plus food and water bowls and some treats and toys. It was actually kind of fun. June 22nd was a Wednesday, and I would be picking her up on Monday the 20th.
A week went by pretty fast. My packages came, the garden got some rain, I fretted over this and that, but most of the work was done. I’d stopped hearing from my friend—he was a friend, right?—so I have to admit, some doubts crept in. I mean, I knew what to collect, and I knew to put in on the deck, but then what? Some kind of tractor beam drags it all to the mother ship? There’s a dog, for crying out loud. And there’s also me—exactly where do I fit in? Am I going wherever the cargo goes? For how long? All I had to go on was “you be there too”, and “dress for warm”. I pulled out my canvas backpack from long ago and packed a few things, underwear, socks, flashlight, binoculars, a bottle of water. I have a Swiss Army penknife in my pocket anyway, with toothpick and tweezers intact, I am proud to say. I put in two shirts, one pair of pants, my favorite hoodie, a pair of sweatpants, and, since he had brought it up, my Crocs. Also the razor and some other toiletries.
Then, it was mostly waiting. The day came to get Glory, and when I brought her home my young neighbor Ashley was outside with her dog Desmond, and she gushed over Glory while the two dogs exchanged the usual greetings.
“You never said you were getting a dog!”
“Well, she’s not for me. I picked her up for a friend, and he’s coming to get her on Wednesday.” This was actually more than I knew, but it sounded right.
“Aw, what a sweetie! Desmond’s getting old, and we’re looking for a young dog. She’d be perfect!”
I told her the name of the breeder, and maybe they could help her. I also said, I might have to take Glory to my friend, in which case I’d be gone for some time, and could she keep an eye on the garden and the house. Ashley has a key. She thought I was being mysterious, but she said, of course she would, and Glory and I went in the house, which she proceeded to inspect from one end to the other, like any self-respecting dog.
______________________
Tuesday CRAWLED by, though. I kept swinging between, this is so stupid, I’m being had on a major scale, and then I would think, no, remember the list (which I still had, though it didn’t change any more) and the handwriting, and most of all, the money. If I was being scammed, then I suppose that in the end the money would all be sucked back out of my account at one time. But you know what? I could cover it. This whole process might make a fool out of me, but it energized me in a way I hadn’t seen for a long time, plus, even if it all fell apart, I would have a dog. Glory managed to win my heart in 24 hours.
I got the oranges and Ruffles Original, Party-Size. I took my two favorite coffee mugs out of the cupboard, the ones Anna and I used at breakfast, and added them and the bible to the pile of things by the sliding doors leading out to the deck. Everything was collected and accounted for, and don’t think I didn’t check the list over and over, partly to see if anything would change, but it didn’t. And then, it did. It just said See you at noon.
I slept fitfully because I still had my one worry: Pollo Yucatan. I would venture to say no one else in the galaxy was stressing out over Pollo Yucatan at that hour, except possibly a chicken. I got up at 7 and let Glory out in the back yard, and then cleaned up, ate a little breakfast, watered the garden, and then it was around 10 o’clock. Tres Portillos opened at 11. Maybe Ashley could pick it up? I called her and it went to voice mail. I even knocked on her door, but she wasn’t home.
I went home and picked up the list. It said, Oh, for heaven’s sake.
“What?!” I said, maybe just a little too testily. “I’ve done everything else you wanted, can’t you cut me some slack on this?” No reply. “Did I say too much?”
I’m just not used to being talked to like this.
“Well, neither am I! Maybe it’s time someone did,” I said. “Why does it have to be Pollo Yucatan, anyway? There’s lots of good stuff out there.”
Another pause. All right, then. One of my assistants brought me the chicken one time, and it was out of this world. But if you’re such an expert, you pick something. Just make sure it’s good.
Wow, that was the longest exchange in our whole history. I didn’t hesitate. I ran to the phone and placed an order. Then I let Glory out one last time, and transferred my treasure to the deck. At 11:51, one Jet’s Veggie Detroit-Style Deep-Dish pizza was delivered to the front door. At 11:55, I snapped Glory’s leash to her collar, put her bowls out on the deck with water and food, and sat down.
My deck is just a deck. Treated lumber, mostly 2x4’s, 12 feet by 18, nicely maintained. Several poles with hooks screwed onto the railings with hanging baskets of petunias and ferns, a hummingbird feeder, a twirly thing with glassy reflective bits that parcels out the sunlight, a small grill, some built-in benches and four chairs around a table with an umbrella that was currently shading one Jet’s pizza, and some napkins weighted down with a citronella candle. Also, an impressive pile of assembled loot, including a beautiful red geranium and one red rosebush.
At 11:59, Glory growled. I turned, and there was a youngish man nicely dressed in white polo shirt and pants and boating shoes, next to an apparatus I certainly had never seen before.
What do you do in a situation like that? I said, “Would you like some pizza?”
He laughed. “I have no use for that stuff, but I have to say I’m not surprised! He’s always finagling some way to get something hot with lots of drippy cheese.” I started to explain it was my idea, but he pulled a lever and the bottom dropped out of our world. My first thought was, there go the whisky glasses, but actually the ride, or whatever it was, was relatively smooth and quite fast. One minute we were in a shady green back yard, and the next we were whooshing and bumping through darkness in what looked like a gauzy intestine, with flashes of light in its walls. Glory was howling, and I felt a little sick so I shut my eyes, and when I opened them again, it was sunshine, and the deck was gently rocking under trees that overhung the shallow water at the edge of a lake. Mr. Skipper was gone, and so was his machine.
“Good afternoon, Joe. Welcome to my world!” I was rubbing my eyes. It was Mr. Dream Voice, no mistaking. He was definitely younger than I had pictured. Glory had had enough of the deck, and easily cleared the distance between us and the shore. She ran over to our friend and jumped up on his white robe. He laughed and scratched her ears vigorously, doing the “Who’s a good girl?” thing in a hooty voice. I liked him, I couldn’t help it, and clearly Glory would, too.
“You’re speaking English, at least,” I said.
“I’m speaking Aramaic, but you’re hearing English. This is where I live, Capernaum.”
I turned around. “So that’s…”
“Yup. The fabled Sea of Galilee. Great fishing. I hope you brought the hooks.”
Somehow I knew that he knew I did. “I didn’t know my deck would float.”
“Ah. We just finished the floating dock before you showed up and landed on it. You know, a deck isn’t that much different from a dock. So here’s where we’ll hide your deck till you need it again, in plain sight.”
“Are you…?”
“Yeah. You can call me Josh, and I’ll call you Joe. Come on, let’s go to my house. My friends will bring all your stuff, and I do mean all—that propane grill’s got to come inside, and we can have fun cooking with it. I want to get you away from prying eyes, and dressed in something that won’t alarm people. Grab the pizza, if you would.” He laid a gangplank that was lying there over the gap, and picked up Glory’s leash.
We walked a few blocks through stone and stucco structures, and ducked through a doorway into a room that looked out on a beautiful courtyard. “Welcome to my house. I built it myself, with my brothers! We put in a lot of rooms, and one is for you, back by the kitchen, if you can call it that.” He grabbed a piece of pizza. “This is fantastic. Wow. There’s plenty of food here, but nothing like this. It won’t be invented for I think 1700 years. Maybe Italy’s biggest contribution to the world.”
“Leonardo? Michelangelo? Ferrari?”
“Ha! Not really sure what those are. I just know pizza is forever! It will never die! Once it shows up, I mean.”
A wide stone shelf that ran along two of the walls. “Is that for sitting? May I sit?” As we spoke, about a dozen young men and women were hauling my stuff into the courtyard.
“It is, and you may.” I slumped down and Josh was kind enough to let me think for a bit.
Finally, I said, “Capernaum?” Josh nodded. “Roman times?” He nodded again. “Am I stuck here?”
“You don’t have to be. I can send you back right now, but my hope is that you’ll stay with us—with me—for a while. Not exactly sure how long, maybe three years? You’ll survive, and then we’ll return you and your deck back to the same moment when you left Ohio, so you’ll be a bit older, but no one will know. I recommend we save what you’re wearing now for the return trip, and you change into something that fits the times better.” He brought me a very roomy short-sleeved bathrobe. “Just a minute,” he said, grabbing another rectangle of pizza as he went out in the courtyard.
He came back, ripping open a pack of the t-shirts. They were six to a pack, and I’d brought three packs. “We usually wear an undergarment, and they’re pretty cumbersome. Here, put this on,” and he handed me a long shirt. “Along the same lines, but so much lighter and cooler and easier to wash.”
“Do I leave my underwear on?”
“Ha! We really don’t wear any, just the undergarment and the robe. You can if you want, who will know? And I can give you a loincloth. The Essenes wear them, but they’re just a nuisance in our climate. The loincloths, I mean.”
I put on the clothes. He cinched a nice cloth belt around my waist. “There you go, just like us. You can go barefoot, or I can get you sandals. For that matter, you can wear your Crocs, at least around the house. Now, come on out in the courtyard and I’ll get you some water or some wine. You can meet everybody.” He led me outside, under a lovely tree where a table stood with some benches, and I sat. I could see there was a second level of rooms, and steps up to the roof, which they used for all kinds of things. We were joined by a bunch of young men, a couple older ones, and a few women. I could understand most of what most of them said.
“Eventually you’ll learn the language. Till then, we’ll leave the translator working when we need it.” People put olives and bread and dates in front of me, and something like mozzarella cheese. Josh said something, and a young man ran over to my things and brought back the bag of oranges, which everyone began to devour in juicy whoops of joy. “We have oranges, you know, but not as good as navel ones. I asked you to bring them just as a treat for the gang.”
We ate. Glory got a cut of meat, and actually ate some fruit as well. I could see what he called the kitchen, it was just a fire, a spit, a table, and some storage along the one wall. Afterwards, some men—I don’t think there were actual servants here, it looked like everybody served each other—brought some water and we washed our hands and faces. At that point, Josh took me by the hand, which was weird, but actually was kind of nice, and led me up the stairs to the second level to a covered open porch with cushions. He motioned me into its shade, and to sit, as he half-sat, half-reclined himself. Glory dropped down on her side between us both, panting.
“You can sleep if you want, or I can fill you in.”
“I could use some answers, please. I’m so confused.”
“OK. I think you know who I am, and where you are and when?”
“I do, I just can’t process it well. Why did I even have to come here?” I wasn’t about to ask how I got there, not right now. “And what’s with all this cargo?” I was well aware that in my era, the answer to the question ‘If you could meet one historical person, who would it be?’ was often this man. The thought was overwhelming. He himself was not.
“OK, let’s talk about stuff first. I was raised to be a builder and carpenter. I did it pretty well, got my family on a secure footing even after my dad died, then left to do what I do now. Yes, there were weird things at my birth, but after that the whole point was to experience normal, to excel but to not stand out, to be a bona fide full-fledged human. But after the River Jordan with John, everything changed. When I came up out of the water, I suddenly began remembering my old life, the beginning, the creating, and the splendor of my father’s house when I lived with him.
“Then I was in the wilderness with you-know-who, and once that was all taken care of, my father sent servants to feed me. That sounds like a small thing, but remember, I hadn’t eaten for weeks, and they took it upon themselves to bring me back to good health and life in this world of the senses. And I’m telling you, it wasn’t bread and water, it was all kinds of wonderful things from all parts of the world, things we had in the old days and put on the earth for people to enjoy. It was the very best, a celebration of sorts, and boy! Suddenly I remembered all the things I was missing. And on top of that, they also brought me some very specific messages from my father. That did more for me than the food.
“And now, I get to turn the world upside-down, and to bring people back to my father, with all that that portends. I’m not going to have an income, although I still have most of the gold the men from the East gave me way back when. I’m in the employ of my father, and it’s going to be a hard life, a lot of it on the road, but meanwhile I do have this home base, a nice one, in a lovely seaside town. I don’t know exactly how long the mission will last, he’s been careful about that, but I do know there’s only one way out and it’s pretty awful, and it’s a non-negotiable part of the deal. And because of that, one of the compensations is, for this short time, as long as I’m discreet about it, and stay wholly devoted to the work at hand, in the humblest way, anything my father or his helpers can do for me or provide for me is at my beck and call. That can mean giving people new eyes, or legs, or feeding crowds, or making wine out of water, or calming storms, but on a strictly personal level, it means I can have whatever I want to keep me fired up. And whatever I want is what you brought me. Starting with the pizza.” At this point, he stopped and stared at me, in a pleasant, expectant way. Glory raised her head and did the same.
Gradually I realized I was supposed to ask a specific question. “But how do you even KNOW about pizza and Allbirds and melodeons and t-shirts?”
“Ah. Where I used to live, with my father, we had a pretty free approach to space and time. You know, that ‘end from the beginning’ stuff in Isaiah that you say you believe, that doesn’t always apply to me, but it does to my father. We could actually send our staff—they’re more than that, of course—wherever and whenever we wanted, in much the same way as you got here today. A lot of times they’d bring back the best of what they found, so I am pretty familiar with some of the most wonderful things human civilization achieved, like, for example, Ruffles Original chips. Meanwhile, these poor people don’t even know about potatoes! Or peppers or tomatoes, let alone pizza and or tacos. They have food, and it’s healthy—the olive oil is the best anywhere—but I happen to know there’s a LOT more.
“So, back then, or even today, if I want to know, what’s the best shoe mankind will come up with for this climate, they do the spirit equivalent of a Google search, fly to the ends of the earth, and bring me back an assortment. It’s not always from the far end of history, either—look at Japanese swords or Chinese porcelain or Mayan stonemasons or Amati violins.
“But you happen to live at a time when a lot of the things that could make me happy all coincide. The 21st century isn’t the greatest time for people, but, man, after two thousand extra years of perfecting and engineering, you really have arrived at some very cool stuff. I would LOVE a pair of Ray-Bans for this sunshiny world, but that would be too over-the-top weird and showy, so the list is mostly stuff I can hide in my house. Except for good old Glory here.” He scratched her white spot. “She’s coming with me.” Look at that, she was already in love with him, her tail thumping away.
“Although I do plan to hide one of those propane lighters in my robe at all times. And some things I plan to share. The whisky is for me and my 12, and you, if you like. We have to make it last a few years. Peter and John and James are great fishermen, and they’ll think fishing with a pole, with your hooks and line, is pretty neat. The shoes I plan to wear, they’ll be an anomaly, but also good publicity, especially when they see the purple. The bible, now, that’ll be interesting, but it’ll save me so much time. Nobody else will have any idea what it even is, let alone what it says.”
It was my turn again. “OK, I think I can see the use of a lot of it. But a geranium?”
“That,” and he laughed, “is for my mom. She’ll love it.”
“And the rosebush?”
“That,” and he looked me deeply in the eye, “is for you. Should you decide to stay, and I hope you will. We’ve kept things completely voluntary since our unfortunate tampering with King Saul’s psyche. But I know how much you love roses, and we have nothing like that one you brought, especially when it comes to fragrance.”
It was nice to at least be considered. “I have to ask—God has given you friends here, people to help you. Why drag someone from a whole other time? How did it end up being me?”
He sighed. “Oh, well, I don’t know.”
He appeared to have truly dropped the mind-reading thing, or he would have heard the uproar.
He went on. “I really don’t know much about the future. My father and his helpers do, and they said you were the right one. What good is all this stuff without someone with the imagination and know-how to use it? There isn’t time to train a newbie. My understanding is, you garden and you cook, you have the time, and you are pretty devoted to our cause. The offer is, internship. You can stay here for the next few years and grow produce, I have land out back, and help with meals for me, and you can also be my… what, pal? Supposedly you’ve even asked for that back in your day. You won’t go on the road with us, but for you that’ll be time off, in a pleasant resort town by the sea. You’ll need to haul water like everybody else, but the lightweight buckets will make you the envy of the town. I tried to make things a little easier for you with the knives and lighters and forks and pans. Even the fishhooks, if you want to catch us dinner off the deck. One of the pillows is for you. As for the coffee…”
“I brought the best mugs.”
“I appreciate that, and you should take them home with you when you go. The coffee is for you and me to share, here, at home. My father and I put coffee on earth as a gift, and do you think any of these brilliant minds we made have figured out what it is?! I mean, there are whole hillsides of it only a few hundred miles from here! Their goats eat it and start doing the caffeine dance, but has anyone noticed? The world could have been enjoying it all this time. God knows I can use it with the long days ahead—that and a good dog are going to help me more than almost anything. So when I’m in Capernaum, you and I will have our morning cup together.”
“Um, we’re going to go through two pounds pretty quickly.”
“Have some faith, my man. A simple copy/paste procedure, one of my superpowers. Elijah’s oil. Loaves and fishes. I just need something to work with. We won’t run out of coffee. Are you in?”
I pretended to hem and haw, but of course I was in. Actually, I was in after the handwriting thing in Ohio. So, I stayed. I planted seeds and watered a rosebush the next day. I hauled water, I eventually learned to make pizza and tacos and curry without rice with the tools at hand, I cooked lots and lots of fish, I divvied out forks for meals and counted them after, I knew Mary and John and Peter and James and Judas and all the others. I never did learn Aramaic, but it didn’t matter. I went out to see Josh when he was working in the neighborhood. I got to hear the sermon on the mount live, can you imagine? Although I was the only one who called it that. I learned to play the melodeon (it has a nameplate that says “Jusqu’au bout du monde”, which I still find amusing) while Josh played guitar, just simple stuff, mostly in G. We weren’t very good but we did have fun, and sometimes the others danced to our tunes. He just did it to ease the stress, but I have to say, he truly enjoyed music as much as anyone I knew. I cleaned up after the dog. And I gardened, just like in Ohio. After a couple years, people came from miles around to see what a 21st-century man had done with first-century resources. If I had had more years, they’d still be talking about it. One man came all the way from Jerusalem, where he gardened in a high-class cemetery. He was amused that my name was Cain, and eventually became part of the movement. I saw a lot of the ups and downs, and dealt with a lot of the aftermath, but you know all that, and of it I will say no more.
But it was always a temp position, and one evening in the spring, we went back up on the roof. He was carrying a bottle and two glasses. Glory bounded up the stairs and flopped down with us. He put down the bottle and rubbed her belly.
“Ardbeg?” I asked.
“Dalwhinnie, actually. My dad’s favorite. He had the bottle sent. I even had ice brought in, but we have to use it fast. Have a glass with me?”
Normally I didn’t drink, but this wasn’t something you passed up. “I believe I will, thank you.”
“Good. All good.” He winked at me, put a couple chunks of ice in each glass, and dripped the beautiful liquid over it. “There’s a lot about to happen soon. I’m going to be leaving Galilee, and I really won’t be back till after it’s over, and everything will be a lot different. It’s time for you to go home, assuming you still want to.”
I have to say, whisky is a taste I won’t ever acquire, but that night I enjoyed it. “I think so. I won’t be able to tell anybody about it.”
“Correct. But nothing will ever be the same.” We shared a deep, long look, and a deep, long thought, and at that moment I was happier there than at any other place in time, even with Anna. “Take your mugs, and the Chemex for that matter. Take the melodeon, we can’t have people finding it. And as much as I hate to say it, take Glory with you.”
“I’m getting a little old to take care of a dog.”
“You’ll figure out something. The others are going to be very busy here, and I want her to be with someone she knows.”
“All right.” I definitely had fallen for her, and she would be quite the souvenir.
“Now, about your pay.”
“Oh, please. That was never part of the deal.”
He looked pleased. “No, it wasn’t. But when you go back to Ohio, you’ll find you never have money problems again. It won’t even show up on your taxes. Our staff can handle the IRS.”
“Well, that’s a major thing. Thank you.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“You can make my garden grow.”
“Too late! It’s already set up so it’ll always be just a tad nicer than even you intended, but you still get to weed and plant and things. The rainfall will be just what you need, when you need it. Your neighbors may wonder, but it rains on the just and the unjust, you know. Anything else?”
I knew the answer before I asked, but I asked it. “Can you bring Anna back?”
“I can, and I will. But not now.”
I thought. I really don’t need much. But I’d sometimes had this one fanciful notion… “Could you… there’s a lady named Julie Andrews whom I always thought it would be fun to meet.”
He laughed. He laughed a lot, even in the darkest times, and that is my lasting memory of him. “I don’t know who that is.”
“She’s older, elegant. Older than I am, even, but to me she kind of represents a nicer time. When she was young, her singing was a ray of sunshine in a murky world. Anna and I both liked her. America liked her. The Queen liked her. The world still likes her. We’ve watched her grow old, hosting the Vienna Philharmonic and this and that, she still makes fun movies, and if anything, she’s lovelier than she used to be. I don’t need to meet her, but I’ve always had it in my mind to let her know what she’s meant to us. Or maybe just to bask in her glow. I’m not looking for love, I’d just like to be in the same place with her once.”
“You ARE smitten. I’ll let my father know, and then it’s up to our friends. I can’t guarantee anything.”
“That’s fine. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t matter.”
______________________
The next morning was as sunny as the day I arrived. I put on my Ohio clothes, shaved (the razor!), packed what little stuff I was bringing, and dug out Glory’s collar and leash, which we had almost never used. Josh came down to the shore with me, carrying the Merlin.
“The boys wanted to fix up your deck. They scrubbed it and oiled the wood. Now it looks like their boats, but I think it’s nice.”
It was, and they’d brought everything back, even the hummingbird feeder. I went aboard and sat down at the table. In a few minutes, Glory looked up, not growling this time, just expectant, and there was the skipper in white again.
“I’ll see you soon,” said my friend.
“See you,” I said, and before you know it, I was in my back yard.
Ashley was out tending to her raised beds with Desmond. “Oh, hi! What have you done to your deck? All of a sudden it looks really nice. Are you wearing a backpack?”
“Yeah, long story, I’ll fill you in sometime. Ashley, what day is it?”
She looked puzzled. “June 22nd. Two days after the last time you asked. You said you might be going away, but here you are.” She looked surprised. “Is that the same dog? I thought she was a puppy.”
What do I tell her? “This one’s older. Same breeder though. I’ll be looking for a home for her.”
“Well, glory be, as my grandmother used to say. We’ve just about given up looking. How old is she?”
“A little less than four, I think? She’ll need shots and stuff.”
Ashley looked at her. “Huh. Not a puppy, but not all that old. She looks like a great dog. Maybe Jordan and I could get to know her, and we’ll see.” Glory scooted down the steps and she and Desmond got reacquainted, and Ashley petted her over the fence. It could work out.
“Well, good to be home again. I think I’ll go in.” Which only confused Ashley, but she thinks I’m a little batty anyway, so no worries. There really was nothing to catch up on, not even mail, so I did the only sensible thing, I plopped down in my recliner and took a nap, with no dreams. And after that I got on with living.
It’s been a couple weeks. Did the last three years even happen? Glory’s whiter muzzle says it did. She’s been over to Ashley and Jordan’s a lot, and they all get along like a house on fire. Where did that expression ever start? Oh well, you can’t know everything.
My mind is almost back in this century. I have to say, hot water on demand and ready-made ice are two of the most luxurious things humankind has ever come up with, and air conditioning is a close third. I’m definitely getting back into things. I love the melodeon. The level of coffee beans in my canister doesn’t seem to get lower, even though I have coffee every day.
But just when I think maybe it didn’t happen, I read John. He was definitely Josh’s best friend—I never hit that ranking. He may have been a fisherman, but he was clever, you can tell from the way he makes simple ideas mean so much. But I read words like “and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten” and I wonder how much he knew. I also read, “And the glory which you gave me I have given them,” and I feel like they’re both talking to me. I know it’s English so it doesn’t quite work, but I also know not to underestimate them. The coffee and Glory got him through a lot, whether they made it into the story or not. I get a little sad when I think that one of the things the soldiers cast lots for was one of those everyday t-shirts, and that I played a role in a tomb being available, but mostly, it’s good memories that are all the more poignant because there’s no one I can share them with, except a dog.
The garden really is more beautiful than ever. I like to think I have something to do with it, but at the same time, I’ll take what help I can. Yesterday a car slowed down out front, and the driver got out and came up to the front bed. He wasn’t dressed like a chauffeur, but you could tell that’s what he was, and he went back to the car and opened the rear door, and a smartly-dressed older woman got out. She had the most beautiful smile, and twinkly blue eyes. She walked up to the garden, and a younger woman joined her, maybe her daughter.
“Oh, just LOOK at those delphiniums!” I heard her exclaim. “I haven’t seen flowers like that outside of England. How lovely!” She and the man and woman conferred, and looked up at the doorway and saw me. “Yoohoo! Did you grow these wonderful flowers?” They walked up to the doorway.
“Yes, welcome. I’m Joe Cain, and I have a weakness for flowers.”
“Well, that sounds like a confessional. I’m so glad you do!” said the woman. “We’re in town because an old chum is being honored at Playhouse Square, and we have hours before our pilot shows up so I talked Kyle here into driving around the streets near the airport and looking at gardens, it’s such a nice time of year. These are sensational. They remind me so much of home.”
“Well, you’re welcome to enjoy them all you want. I could even send some home with you.”
“Oh, no, they should stay right here on their own stems. I’d feel much better knowing they were still here, still growing.”
Glory came up behind me. I was floating on happiness. “If you have time, I could offer you some fresh-brewed iced tea out on the back deck. It’s nice and shady there, and you could see the back garden. I can even offer you some Dalwhinnie scotch if you like.”
She looked at her daughter and the man, and they both nodded. “I think iced tea would be just the thing,” she said. She flashed me the most elegant, heart-warming smile, and I knew I would never want anything else again. “And aren’t you a beautiful dog! What’s your name?”