The Confession Club by Elizabeth Berg

Author:Elizabeth Berg [Elizabeth Berg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

The Gift of Rain

John switches the long blade of sweetgrass from one side of his mouth to the other. Three red-winged blackbirds are lined up on a branch of the river birch above him and they suddenly rise up together and fly away. Gone to roost. Dusk has arrived, and is bringing out colors one by one, the way it always does. He looks up into the trees above him, lets his eyes rove slowly over the leaves. He lingers on a bouquet-like grouping, where the last bit of sun illuminates their edges. And then, sitting just above those leaves, he sees an owl. The bird is motionless but for the blinking of its round eyes. Such sorrow in those eyes, if you ask John. Such acceptance. The owl sits, and only sits. A Buddha.

The gifts of the out-of-doors. Even on the streets of Chicago in bitter winter, he preferred being outside. The people he ran with, they all did. Most of the homeless did. Easier to have sex, should the occasion present itself, without worrying about some supervisor happening upon you. And outside could hold more: tents and gigantic cardboard boxes that began to feel like luxury accommodations, with their relative privacy and their walls decorated with images torn from magazines or with disintegrating photos. Outside could hold more bags full of belongings and food; it could also hold more despair and confusion and anger—such emotions needed room. If you felt things roiling up inside you, you weren’t trapped a foot away from someone else. You could move.

But here, being outside is like being in a cathedral. He watches as a full moon materializes, a thin black cloud draped upon it like a celestial negiligee. Then he sits up, wraps his arms around his knees, and listens to the creek run.

He would like to stay here. He can be outside and be safe, and he can also have board-and-brick shelter when he needs it. But he’s not sure he can stay. No one has bothered him yet, but he knows he’s been seen. By Iris, of course, but also by a group of young men who tramped across the backyard recently and saw him in the kitchen. It probably won’t be long until word spreads and someone shows up to kick him out, if not arrest him.

He came out to lie by the creek late this afternoon after he’d restuffed his mattress with some of the ancient hay from the loft in the barn, still good-smelling, if a bit dusty. He’d also worked on trying to repair the stairs in the house, or at least make them safer. He used a fine, weighty hammer he’d bought at the hardware store and a half-full box of nails he’d found at the dump. He used boards that were left at a curb where workmen were rebuilding a house; they had welcomed John to them. They had also agreed to letting him work for them for cash next week. A lucky day, that one.

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