“But I’m not expecting anything,” Clark protested. The FedEx man thrust a pen and clipboard toward him with one hand; in his other hand was a large, fat envelope.

“Please sign here.”

Clark hesitated, not sure what to do.

“Please, mister, I’ve got a lot of packages to deliver and just so much time to do it. If you just sign I can leave and you can do anything you want with the package.”

Feeling off-balance, Clark semi-consciously scribbled on the paper attached to the proffered clipboard, but he didn’t reach for the envelope. The FedEx man looked at Clark sharply, and then laid the envelope against the step beside Clark’s feet.

“Thanks. Goodbye.” And the FedEx man loped off to his waiting truck, its motor idling, seeming to Clark to be impatiently waiting to make the next delivery.

Clark stood inertly in his open doorway, watching the truck zoom around the corner where the street curved toward the freeway onramp.

He finally looked down at the bulging envelope near his feet. His head began to flood with images and questions. He reviewed all his few remaining relatives, but couldn’t think of any who would send him anything.

This left official agencies or businesses. Did the IRS return his tax papers for correction?  Maybe it was misdirected to him? Was it for a neighbor? Clark just couldn’t get a clear idea.

Finally, Clark decided to examine the envelope to see if the writing on it would answer any of these questions. He stooped and grasped the envelope at the corner nearest to him with his left thumb and forefinger and began to lift it, but then quickly put his right hand under the package. He thought it might weigh two or three pounds. “There’s a lot of paper in this,” he said to himself.

He looked at the delivery document inside its plastic cover, pasted to the front of the envelope. It was hard to find the name of a sender without his glasses, but the sunlight was bright enough for him to discern most of the printing and writing. There—a name and an address in the city. The name seemed familiar: “Spaeth.” Where had he seen that name before?

Clark sighed, deciding this was enough evidence to warrant opening the envelope. He turned away from the open door, gave it the usual nudge with his shoulder to close it and shuffled over to the end of the couch nearest the window, through which the afternoon sun’s light and warmth flowed invitingly.

Clark had all his necessary small tools on the table next to this end of the couch: TV remote control, two sets of glasses—one for reading and one for TV viewing—stacks of magazines and newspapers, pens and pencils, magnifying glass, and scissors. He put on his reading glasses and grasped the scissor handles.

The envelope’s plastic binding gave way to the point of the scissors so easily that Clark wondered how the package could stay intact through its travels. Soon he had in hand a one-page cover letter and three file folders bound together with rubber bands. The letterhead was from the law firm of Charles G. Spaeth. “Yes,” he remembered to himself, “Charlie Spaeth, my lawyer from so many years ago. What could he want with me after all this time?”

As Clark read the letter he realized this was from someone else, not Charlie. It was about Charlie. He had died and all his legal papers were being distributed to his former clients. There was no successor attorney.

Clark put the letter on the couch to his left and slowly removed the rubber bands from around the envelopes. There were three. One was labeled “Minsky, Clark: Trust.” He put it on top of the letter,
remembering that his trust was very simple and hardly worth the expense of creating it.

The next one read “Minsky, Clark: California Franchise Tax Board vs Minsky.” Clark issued a small grunt of satisfaction: “one of the few battles I’ve won.” This folder joined the other on the couch.

His grasp on the final folder slackened as he read, “Minsky, Clark: Final Divorce Decree and Agreement.” Papers fell and spread across the floor at his feet as he momentarily held the emptied folder, his fingers burning. He then dropped it on the pile of papers it once held and, with great effort, forced his right foot to slowly push the pile toward the TV, as far from himself as possible without the seat of his pants losing its purchase on the couch.

The sun moved slowly across Clark as he remained sitting on the couch. Motes of dust, illuminated by the glancing sunlight, slowly settled as Clark sat. The sun’s warmth and light finally left the window.

Clark remained in the darkness, slumped at the end of the couch, wondering if he had enough energy to get up and prepare his solitary dinner, a routine of the decades since Martha left him for Kerwin, his younger brother.

“Driver, aren’t you going to stop those children from making all that noise in the back? They are destroying the bus!”

Alice couldn’t contain herself any more. This was happening more frequently on her daily ride to and from work. Not only was it wrong for these children to behave so poorly in public, it was getting almost frightening.

Ralph had often seen this plain, thirtyish woman on his bus, and had a nodding acquaintance with her. “It’s not my business, lady. I ain’t an airline captain and this ain’t an airplane. ”

Ralph had been driving bus for 16 years, and he silently agreed with her it was getting worse. He used to try to act the role of responsible captain of his ship, but the rules governing actions toward passengers were getting stricter, especially toward “children.” “Hell,” he said to himself, “these aren’t children, they’re wild animals and God knows how management would react if I went back there and spoke harshly to those delicate little souls. Shit! And if I did, the company would just give me crap and nothing good would happen, anywhere.”

“Well, somebody needs to do something,” said Alice furiously, feeling herself on the edge and fearful of losing her temper. “If someone doesn’t stop these children, someone could get hurt. And they’re destroying public property!”

“Lady, if I go back there, which I dearly would love to do,” Ralph said while carefully maneuvering the bus in the driving rain around a double-parked car, forcing oncoming traffic to skid and halt abruptly, “I would bark at them and they would snarl at me and things would get worse and I could get fired. I ain’t Captain America, you know. I’m just a tired, overweight bus driver.”

“Well there aren’t any rules any more, not in the schools, not in public places, not in the homes. What’s to become of us?”  Alice was shaking, her fury increasing, her sense of right and wrong taking another brutal assault by these uncontrolled, uncontrollable young louts.

Without conscious intention, Alice abruptly rose from her seat near the driver, grasping her umbrella from under her arm, and ran to the rear of the bus, a demonic light in her eyes.

“Stop it, stop it, do you hear?” She raised her umbrella and inexpertly smashed it on the seat next to one of the gum-chewing girls who were giggling at the antics of the boys. Alice’s words were contained in a shriek, not unlike the tone and vibrancy of a police whistle.

“Yeow,” cried the girl, and the several boys near her leaped back, startled and astonished at this display. The other few passengers swiveled their heads to the rear of the bus in response to the noise, having already begun their rotation as Alice sped up the aisle.

“You have no consideration for the other passengers, you are destroying the bus so it must be repaired with the tax money your parents pay, and you are disgracing yourselves by your public behavior. You should be ashamed of yourselves, and if your parents could see you they would be ashamed of you too!”

Alice, of course, suspected that their parents didn’t pay taxes and wouldn’t care, but she had in mind her own parents and her own family’s values.

The bus, at this point, had reached a regular stop. Ralph, despite his bulk, rose swiftly from his seat to defend Alice from the attack he was sure would happen upon her from the “wild animals.” Now looming behind her, as she raised her umbrella for another smash on something or someone, Ralph barked,” get off now, all you kids, or I’ll call the cops.”

Stunned, unable to comprehend what they were facing in these two odd-looking people, they stumbled off the open rear exit in a rush, some muttering epithets over their shoulders.

Ralph and Alice, and all the passengers, felt as if a great breath had sucked all the sound from the bus. They were now able to hear the rain on the roof. A few long seconds passed while the sound of the rain, the unusual peacefulness of the bus and the memory of Alice’s passion settled pleasantly into their bones.

Slowly, Alice turned to Ralph and, despite her still remaining and righteous anger, managed a slight smile and said “well done, captain.”

They married two months later.

Written by Contributor Martha Gale

Le wiped the counter as the last lunch customer left. He turned the radio from easy listening to the Vietnamese station and walked from table to table, straightening the baskets that held soy sauce, fish sauce, toothpicks and salt and pepper. That’s when he noticed the man sitting at the back of the restaurant. He’d come in early, ordered the lunch special and a pot of green tea. He looked familiar, but Le still found it hard to recognize customers. They all looked so alike.

“More tea, sir?”

The man pushed the pot across the table without looking up.

Le took the pot behind the counter and began to prepare fresh tea. While waiting for the water to boil, he took a good look at the man. He was big—like most American men. Clumsy in their bigness, they never seemed to know exactly where their limbs were. His skin was pale, chalky even, showing the blue shadows of veins underneath. He slumped over the table, the teacup in front of him. And those big, knotty hands. The man seemed intent on studying them, staring at his palms as if to read between their lines.

Strange, Le thought as he poured water over the leaves, he’d asked for green tea specifically. Americans usually ordered coffee with their meal. Le was good at making coffee: even before learning English he’d had to learn to flip burgers and make the watery coffee Americans liked. He was glad to be working now in a real Vietnamese restaurant. It had only been open a month, and business was good. By summer, Le figured, he’d have saved enough to propose to his girlfriend.

“Yow!” Le shrieked as the pot slid off the damp counter and landed with a crash on the floor, splattering hot water and tea leaves. He looked guiltily toward the kitchen door, but the cook must have been having his afternoon smoke on the back stoop. Then he heard a chair fall on the floor. Le looked over the counter and saw the man huddled under the table, his chair on its side in the aisle.

Le rushed over to the table and leaned over. “Alright, sir?”

The man looked up at him, his pale eyes showing too much white. With something between a grunt and a growl, he crouched against the wall, shielding his head with his arms.

“Sir?” Le wondered if he should get the cook. He’d been in this country longer and understood the sometimes bizarre behavior of the natives. But Le didn’t want the cook to see the mess on the floor.

The radio played a soft melody, a young woman singing a love song. Slowly the man got out from under the table, picked up the chair, and sat down, wiping his face with a napkin. His skin was bright red now, glistening with sweat.

“I’m very sorry, I dropped the teapot. I can make more,” Le started back behind the counter, relieved that whatever had just happened seemed to be over.

“No, don’t bother.” The man stood up and put on his leather jacket. He pulled a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and placed it under the teacup. He headed for the door but stopped by the cash register. Looking directly at Le for the first time since coming into the restaurant, he asked, “Do you have kids?”

“Me? Oh, no. ” Le blushed slightly as he thought of his girlfriend, “I hope to some day.”

The man gazed down at Le, but his eyes seemed to focus on something far away. He nodded, “I hope so, too.”