Arnold dislikes mirrors.
As a result, he has only one small mirror in the home he shares with Gus. Of course, a man must have a mirror for shaving and checking that his nose hairs are not too out-of-bounds, but other than that, there’s not much need for a looking glass for an older jazz man whose public appearances are limited to walking his dog on the beach and dispensing snacks at the Mini-Mart. And it can be a shock to look up, mid-tooth-brushing or hand-washing, and see an old man staring back at the young man inside the aging shell.
Arnold can trace the lines on his face, the raised veins on the back of his hands, the splotches that used to be freckles but now are undeniably age spots. He can connect the dots (pun intended) between each signal of impending mortality and its manifestation on his body.
When you are young, the body absorbs emotional trauma, and hides it behind smooth skin and clear gray-green eyes and wispy flyaway hair the color of a chestnut nestled in a dimple in the soil, a chestnut that fell from a tree and rolled to rest near the grave marked by the most expensive tombstone Arnold’s parents could afford. It’s not a jazz song per se, and Arnold is generally a purist, but when thinking of his sister’s death the soundtrack is always Peter Gabriel’s “I Grieve.” He can’t remember the words (the tune is stuck in his head on an endless loop), but he knows it’s something about how life goes on and on and on and on.
The body soldiers on as if nothing’s happened, but all those traumas must come out some day. The memory of the elfin body of his sister being lowered into the ground, the job in the warehouse that he didn’t get and didn’t want but really needed, the dog who ran into the street at just the wrong moment, the coffee spilled on the new pants he’d coveted and saved for, the lymphoma that ate up his mother’s stomach from the inside like some voracious Pac Man, the girl he liked who said No when he asked her out, the liver failure that took down his father after rage and despair had hollowed out what was left of his heart . . . each has its own malignance, the petty anxieties and life-wracking tragedies working a dark magic on the exterior. Each moment and string of moments muscles its way, over time, to the surface, and leaves its mark.
And who wants to look at a map of his own grief and disappointment every day?
(Gus always points out making joyful music and laughing with friends in the Louisiana sunshine also have a time-stamp, which Arnold grudgingly concedes. But still.)
So there is only the one small mirror in Arnold’s house, just big enough for shaving.
There is a normal-sized mirror in the Mini-Mart restroom, and for some reason today he glances up as he’s washing his hands and suddenly all he can think is Goddamn I’m old. The realization heightens his sense of urgency. This Preacher fella is his last hurrah. If he doesn’t take this chance to get back into the music scene it will be too late. The hard-living he’s done . . . in a few years, he’ll be dead.
What will you be in a few years if you don’t go to New Orleans? Gus asks gently.
Arnold ignores him.
You’ll still be dead, Gus says, a little more sternly.
No response.
Seventy-two isn’t that old, Gus wheedles.
And Arnold doesn’t know how to tell him seventy-two is too old to let go of the chance to have what he didn’t know was missing, the answer to the prayer he didn’t know he was sending up to the god he’d long ago abandoned.
Recap and Reminder
You can find the Cast of Characters on this Substack or on The Dogs of Looser Island website here.
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels (text added)
And now back to Episode 14 . . .
Time rolls on, and still the Preacher fails to return. The notes emanating from the sax get sweeter, and Arnold’s face gets sourer. (“More sour,” Ella might chide, if she heard the other islanders’ thoughts on the matter. Which she doesn’t, because she’s got her own tragedies to deal with.)
One Sunday in late January Larry Coombs and Beatrix come in for Larry’s weekly purchase of Hostess cupcakes—a guilty pleasure he won’t indulge at the Apple Cart, where he might run into a friend or a neighbor, but which he can safely purchase at o-dark-thirty on a Sunday at the Mini-Mart. Something about the waxy chocolate frosting that sits so lightly on the chocolate cake-like substance hiding in its heart the strangely sour creamy filling, something about the taste transports him, he’s told Beatrix. Beatrix has given up disapproving of this small vice, and only chuffs lightly, though she would be more vocal about it if he ever tried to feed that garbage to her precious orphan Katie. (Not that Beatrix uses those words in her canine philosophizing about human treats and such, her precious orphan Katie, but that is how some people refer to Katie, Beatrix knows.)
“What’s it called, in the law,” Arnold says, as Larry is checking out the snack aisle, looking as though he is considering his options, as if he might just buy the package of Heart Healthy Cashews instead of the cupcakes, “what is it when somebody promises you something, then they don’t make good on their promise?”
“Breach of contract,” Larry suggests absently, picking up the brown bag with the handmade label announcing: Looser Island Granola Happy Trails It’s L.I.G.H.T, It’s Good For You, It’s Local – What More Could You Ask For?
Arnold can see Larry is hoping that is the end of the conversation, so he can go back to pretending he isn’t going to buy Hostess Cupcakes, but Arnold presses on.
“So, if, say, a man come in here of a Sunday morning and says he’ll come back after he gets back on his feet, and he don’t come back, even though you wait for him for days and weeks and all, can you sue him? Can you sue him for breach of contract?”
Larry appears to access some inner resolve, grabs the cupcakes, and brings them to the counter with the air of a man saying to a Civil War era surgeon Just cut off my leg now and be done with it. “That depends,” he says. “There’s something called the Statute of Frauds that says certain kinds of contracts must be in writing to be enforceable. Do you have the promise in writing?”
“No,” Arnold says sullenly.
“Well, was the promise sufficiently specific? I mean, did you know exactly what he was promising?”
“He said I could audition for one of his bands,” Arnold says.
Larry sighs. “Did you give him any consideration?” he asks. “Did you give him something in exchange for the promise to let you audition?”
“He got free coffee and a doughnut,” Arnold says, trying to suppress the hope in his voice.
Larry hands his money to Arnold, and Arnold gives him change, and the bell on the cash register sounds like a death knell, presaging Larry’s answer.
“I think,” Larry says, speaking slowly, clearly not wanting to disappoint the Mini-Mart Jazz Man, “you’d have a hard time winning that lawsuit, and you would spend a lot of money losing it.”
“Don’t know what good the law is if it can’t help a body that’s got a broken promise laying him low,” Arnold says.
“I don’t disagree,” Larry says. (He’s heard this song before, the dissatisfied drumbeat on the decaying bones of Justice, but he refuses to listen, stuffs metaphorical fingers in metaphorical ears; this moment is all about cupcakes.) He tears into the cellophane wrapper and takes that first sinful bite.
Gus looks up, thinking Larry might feel guilty enough to drop him a crumb, but no such luck. Larry smiles an apology at Arnold, and he and Beatrix leave the store.
Arnold and Gus watch them go, the light of hope slowly fading in both sets of eyes.
And then comes a day that makes Arnold think maybe god ain’t such a bad dude after all (maybe even give him that capital “G,” but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet).
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