I Am the Messenger

"Of course." She takes the cake from me and puts it in the kitchen. I can hear her mucking around in there, and I call out to see if she needs any help. She tells me I should just relax and make myself comfortable.

The dining room and the kitchen both face the street, and as I sit at the dining room table, I see people walk past, rush past, and some wait for their dogs and move on. On the table is a pensioner's card. Her name's Milla. Milla Johnson. She's eighty-two.

When she comes back out, she brings a dinner identical to the one she had the previous day. Salad and soup and some tea.

We eat, and she tells me all about her day-to-day travels.

She talks for five minutes to Sid in the butcher's shop but doesn't buy any meat. Just chats and talks and laughs at his jokes, which aren't really funny.

She has lunch at five to twelve.

She sits in the park, watching the kids play and the skateboarders do their tricks and swerves at the skate bowl.

She drinks coffee in the afternoon.

She watches Wheel of Fortune at five-thirty.

She has her dinner at six.

She's in bed by nine.

Later on, she gives me a question. We've cleaned up the dishes, and I'm sitting again at the table. Milla comes back in, nervously sitting in her chair.

Her shaking hands reach out.

To mine.

They hold them and her pleading eyes open me.

She says, "So tell me, Jimmy." The hands begin to shake a little harder. "Where have you been all this time?" Her voice is painful but soft. "Where have you been?"

Something's stuck in my throat--the words.

Finally, I recognize them and say, "I've been looking for you." I speak that sentence as if it's the one great truth I've ever known.

She returns my conviction, nodding. "I thought so." She pulls my hands over to her, leans over, and kisses my fingers. "You always did know what to say, didn't you, Jimmy?"

"Yes," I say. "I guess I did."

Soon, she tells me she has to go to bed. I'm pretty sure she's forgotten about the mud cake, and I'm dying to have some. It's close to nine o'clock, and I can sense I'm not getting a single crumb of that cake. I feel awful about it, of course. I ask myself what kind of person I am, worrying about missing out on a lousy piece of cake.

She comes to me at about five to nine and says, "I think I should probably go to bed, Jimmy. Do you think?"

I speak softly. "Yes, Milla, I think so."

We walk to the door and I kiss her on the cheek. "Thank you for dinner," I say, and walk out.

"My pleasure. Will I see you again?"

"Definitely." I turn and answer. "Soon."

The message this time is to soothe this old lady's loneliness. The feeling of it gathers in me as I walk home, and when I see the Doorman, I pick him up and hold all forty-five kilos of him in my arms. I kiss him, in all his filth and stench, and I feel like I could carry the world in my arms tonight. The Doorman looks at me with bemusement, then asks, How about a coffee, old son?

I put him down and laugh and make the old bludger a coffee, with plenty of sugar and milk.

"Would you like a coffee, too, Jimmy?" I ask myself.

"Don't mind if I do," I reply. "Don't mind at all," and I laugh again, feeling every bit like a true messenger.