Paper Hearts

He stands out in the cold on the sidewalk as cars speed on by. They are blind to him. They are running late to work and only slow down to look for a parking spot. He is just a gray mass along the route. Hardly anything at all to consider. Several people walk past who parked a mile out and along the street so not to pay for parking, or who live close enough where they can walk to all the offices just over the bridge. They don’t say anything to him. He is a panhandler, they presume, who will likely beg them for change if they make eye contact. Maybe he is a heroin junkie or a drunk. They don’t look at him, so not to feel badly for all that they feel they have and all that he apparently has not.

Her building is a posh three-story apartment that sits on S. Front Street. One of those yuppy rehab jobs by some multi-million-dollar investment firm. An old brick warehouse with brand-new thick tall black-framed Pella windows and a completely gutted and rehabbed interior that left only the charm of exposed brick walls, some wood beams, rafters, and original hardwood floors that you just cannot replicate. He can look inside from the sidewalk, but he tries not to. He looks at the street and those passing cars as though he is waiting for a bus. This isn’t the first time he has been here. But he knows it will be the last.

He hasn’t bathed in several days and his clothes fall from his shoulders and are dirty from the places he has slept the past few nights. He hasn’t shaved in several months and has grown a scraggly beard that matches his long mop of dark brown hair that is streaked with silver, showing his young yet old age, but more so, his recent street wear. His face is the cold color of a market fish, dirty, but his teeth are clean and straight. If there is one thing he doesn’t go without, it is a toothbrush and a good paste. He finds spigots and brushes three times a day religiously. Even when he hasn’t had a meal in days, he brushes like a zealot. He usually gets his meals from trashcans or dumpsters behind the plethora of fancy restaurants in the vicinity.

He is holding no beggar’s sign. He doesn’t ask for money or anything from anyone. If offered, he would likely turn them down. What he wants is in the apartment and he paces back and forth to determine how best to go about it. He was determined that it would happen today or it wouldn’t happen at all. A year on the street had taken its toll and the recent winter had been brutal, so much so that he could hardly feel his fingers at times, even though it is now May.

He is wearing a green army field jacket, gray rolled up wool pants, boots, thick socks and a Boston Red Sox ballcap. He carries a large blue backpack; in which he has everything he owns in this world. A bedroll, a few pairs of socks and underwear, an extra pair of pants, a few shirts, a large Rambo-like knife, the toothbrush and good paste, and a book. It is a very important book that he himself wrote.

He is nervous and occasionally he turns around and peeks into the window. He sees her now and then walking through the open floor plan. It is early morning. His eyes light up when he sees her, but before she catches him looking, he hurriedly looks away. Her boyfriend left for work about a half-hour ago, a lawyer of some sort, in an expensive suit and $500 shoes. The two men passed each other. The lawyer didn’t care to notice and made no eye contact. But he looked at the lawyer and smiled, saying good morning, which went unrequited but for the sound of his expensive shoe heels quickly clopping away like a parade horse.

It is so damn cold. May, and it is still cold. His fingers that poke out of his fingerless gloves are numb, though he rubs them violently. The one thing you never get used to is the cold. You can get used to not bathing, or not eating, or sleeping on grass or concrete, but the cold is always cold. He blows on his hands and coughs, which quickly turns into a coughing fit. And before he knows it, he is slumped over and coughing up blood again which he wipes from his mouth with a napkin he keeps handy. It was already stained pink and he will have to get another soon, he thinks, losing more of his heart into it and putting it back into his coat pocket.

She sees him through the window and she doesn’t look away. She has seen him all morning. First, as she was having breakfast as her boyfriend paced around drinking his latte complaining about her family coming for the weekend, saying he might stay somewhere else because he doesn’t like her mom. She barely heard her boyfriend complain, for her eyes were on the mysterious man outside. It is as though he is a curious animal in an aquarium, though she is the one inside.

She rubs her swollen stomach and looks at his olive back, still out there, slumped over coughing. There is something about him that draws her. Nothing ominous. Nor anything suspect. Merely, a curious interest. She watches him from a dark room for a while, wondering if he needs some kind of help and asking herself what is he doing out there, knowing that he needs help. Maybe, he will go away, she thinks. Maybe, someone else will help him. The way he coughs though, her medical oath to do no harm will not allow her to further ignore.

She opens the door against her better judgment and asks him to come inside. He turns and looks at her and stares for a while. The way a deer stares at the headlights of a stopped car. She stares back, hoping he is not crazy as he looks. But the invitation had already being extended, so it was too late to rescind it. He smiles and nods, then walks towards her. She smiles nervously, half of her regretting her decision. She rubs her stomach and cringes for the danger she put her child in, still streaming those maternal instincts.   

The apartment smells like pears and vanilla. It is warm and welcoming, he thinks. He awkwardly takes off his shoes and sits his backpack by the door and walks across the hardwood floors in his crusty socks as she leads him to the kitchen. She invites him to sit at the kitchen table and she offers him coffee, which he eagerly accepts. She notices the blood on his lip.

“You are sick?”

“Yes,” he says. “I am sick. I am dying.”

She swallows and sits his coffee mug on the saucer before him and quickly sits across the table. The odor of his body and socks reeks, but she is accustomed to such as an ER doctor.

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“Of what? Hemoptysis is serious, but it doesn’t necessarily mean – ”

“I am dying.”

“Look, I’m just saying it could be something as simple as bronchitis, or – ”

“I don’t smoke crack.”

“I didn’t mean to imply anything,” she stops short. “It could be pneumonia or tuberculosis, or maybe a pulmonary arteriovenous malformation.”

“I’m dying, Alice.”

She stops. “How do you know my name?”

“I have known you for a long, long time.”

She laughs nervously, drinking her coffee. He coughs again and more blood. She retrieves him a warm wash cloth and he thanks her. The warm dampness of the cloth feels good against his face and draped over his tingling fingers. He wipes his forehead and nose clean before wiping the blood from his mouth. He sits back in the chair and drinks the coffee. She gives him a few warm biscuits, which he tries to eat slowly to be polite.

She asks him if he would like cream or sugar. He declines. The coffee is good as it is. He looks around the apartment, his eyes full of the amber light of the Edison bulbs in the pendulous fixture above them. It is a beautiful place. She smiles. Her maternal protective instincts in a brawl with her humanity.

“Well, you know my name, may I know yours?”

“In this life or the last?”

She swallows. “Well, we can start with this one,” she says calmly. She has preliminarily diagnosed him with some kind of obvious personality disorder, or schizophrenia, but psychiatry is not her field of expertise, she warns herself. She smiles and waits for him to reply.

“I am Sam. Before I was Sam, I was Adam. Before that, I was George. And before that ,I was Charles. I can go on if you like.”

“No, Sam is fine,” she grins. “Would you like to take a shower, Sam? I can give you some of my boyfriend’s clothes and you can shave and such, if you like.”

“Are you saying that I stink?”

“Oh. No. No! Just that you might – ”

He laughs. “I know I do. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t go noseblind to the smell. And that would be very kind of you.” He takes a deep breath and gets up from the table and goes for his backpack. She goes to retrieve the promised clothes, a towel, and a shaver. She tells him she will meet him in the bathroom, which is down the hall to the right. He walks in as she lays out the necessaries. He is holding the hunting knife and she turns and looks down and panics. She lets out a ensnared yelp, like a small dog accidentally kicked. He smiles.

“It’s for shaving, Alice,” he says calmly. “A Gillette isn’t going to cut through this bush.” He slowly puts it down on the sink and she exhales and puts the clothes down on a clothes hamper and quickly leaves the room.

“There is soap and shampoo in the cabinet,” she calls from outside of the door.

Almost an hour later, he comes out looking like an entirely different man. Cleanly shaved and very handsome. She gave him a sweater and some jeans and his short hair is slicked back. He cut a considerable length from it. He smells like soap and an aftershave lotion she bought her boyfriend for Christmas last year that he never used. She smiles. Partially in pride for her own charity, and happy for his personal transformation.

“Do you feel better?”

“Immensely! I appreciate your hospitality, Alice. And I cleaned the bathroom so you will not find any hair or dirt about if you should inspect.”

“It is of no concern of mine to find dirt or hair.”

“It may be of concern to your boyfriend.”

“He wouldn’t notice,” she says miserably. “He hasn’t noticed much of anything since I have been pregnant.”

“When are you due?” he asks putting the knife back into his backpack.

“In two months.”

He smiles.

“How do you know you are dying?”

“It is my heart.”

“Are you on a donor list?”

“No,” he laughs. “You don’t understand.”

“I am a doctor. I probably do understand.”

“It is not a matter of medicine, Alice. It is fate. Death is a part of life. It comes and it goes.”

“How do you know my name?”

They sit in the living room with fresh cups of coffee. Sam thinks about brushing his teeth. Taking advantage of the sink before he is back to the mercy of an outdoor spigot. He looks out the window and can almost feel the cold. May, and it is cold. He doesn’t answer her directly. He just says what is playing his mind.

“I was happy once. Very happy. In this life, I mean. Optimistic that I would find you quickly, without even knowing you to exist. I went to college and got a degree in English. Was in every social club and went to every party thinking, maybe ,I would see you there. I took a job teaching and I looked at every face I ever met intensely, hoping to see you. Maybe you would be the single parent of one of my students. Maybe the girl who cuts my hair somewhere, or a face in the mall, a store clerk, or one of the ladies at the BMV. Or maybe at the local pharmacy, filling my prescription.

“I went to practically every bar, every restaurant, every social event advertised, but I could not find you. I never dated or married in this life. There was no point because I was sure I would find you and that – ” he began coughing again and she quickly retrieves him a napkin so he could go on.

“I was sure that you would come. So I started writing a book to chart what memories I had. They come and go like flashes of lightning. They say I neglected my duties at the school and there was an allegation that I had an inappropriate relationship with a student. It never happened. But allegations are enough to condemn someone in this day and age. But in time, I’d realize that the allegation was fate and I would be thankful for it. I lost my job. I lost my home, and my car. That is how I became homeless. A year ago. I needed to be homeless. That was my destiny.

“And so, about eight months ago, wondering these city streets aimlessly, almost ready to give up, I saw you carrying groceries into this building. I held the door for you and you thanked me. I saw you in your face. I knew who you were and that you were you, but I knew you did not know I was me. Maybe, my appearance was to blame for that. I watched you for a while, hung out in the neighborhood, slept in the alley behind your apartment. I saw you and your boyfriend and you appeared happy, so I didn’t interfere for this is not about conflict, it is about fate. I just watched. But after a while, I began to feel my body breaking down. And I knew I was going to die.

“I have loved you since you were born. Before you were born. When you lived before and before and before. I know you do not understand this, and probably think I am crazy, as I did not understand it until I began to meditate upon the strange dreams I had of you and a girl in a yellow dress, also you. Our love has spanned across lifetimes. I don’t know how many. And no matter where we are in the world, where we are born, we will always find each other.

“Fate usually bears us to the same place. Sometimes the same town, or a neighboring town, as is the case in this lifetime and the last. But fate doesn’t care about circumstance. It hasn’t always given us the same status or dreams. I have been born to poverty and you to wealth. I have been born to good health and you to poor. I have been born to Nazism and you to Judaism. I was born to one color and you to another. I was a black man and you were a white woman. They hung me in an elm tree and burned my body for the crime of loving you.

“We are intertwined by fate, by love, or whatever nameless force it is. We are like those paper hearts you make in grade school on Valentine’s Day, Alice. The ones you fold and cut from a single piece of construction paper. Many hearts in one single chain.”

Alice listens intently. Her thin face astounded by his words, enraptured by them. Her mouth open but silent, and her eyes refracting the morning sun that gives color to everything in the room. Her dismissive thoughts of a psychological disorder or neurosis she felt herself unqualified to make in the first place, were disqualified now by her emotional connection to him. If he was crazy, so was she. She could not help but to stare at him. To be lost in his blue eyes that appear even bluer in the light of the room and free of the dirt that had been cleaned of his face. His face was smooth and she desired to touch him.

Never one to act upon an irrational impulse, she suddenly did. She strode across the room and put her hands softly to his face and felt down his cheek to his jawline, staring into his eyes until she felt that spark of recognition within herself. Then she begins to cry.

“I have dreams!” she says. “I can see you! And feel you in them. They sometimes come so quick and I don’t recall them, but I can still feel them inside of me after I wake up and through the day. And sometimes they leave me lonely and sad because I am without you, but more often, they fill my heart and I believe in something more. I can feel love that I don’t have in this life. And I am left with hoping that I have those dreams every night. I want you in my life.”

He smiles looking up at her. His face still in her hands. She kisses him and it turns passionate as she surrenders herself to his lap, awkward for the complexity of her condition, but no less zealous in her desire as he is in his. But before it goes further, he stops and eases her off him with a smile and great restraint in his respectful kindness.

“We mustn’t lose patience,” he says. “Nor faith. Patience and faith are what have gotten us through lives without each other to make lives with each other.”

She wipes her lip that she then bites and sits comfortably down beside of him. Her head on his shoulder. She is still enamored, but a sudden conflict in her rages as she reaches down and rubs her stomach and feels the kick of another man’s child. But despite the baby, she cannot deny the void that has been inside her for as long as she knew. The void she thought a child might fill, but hadn’t. “I’ve waited for so long for you to come!”

“As I have searched.”

“Are you always the searcher and I am the waiter?”

“No. Sometimes you find me. But always it is unwittingly. In the next life, we will forget all that we now know and be solely dependent upon our intuition to find each other again. It is only because of the Zen that I learned our truth. But the innate instinct that draws us together will remain whether we are conscious of it or not.”

She smiles. “I believe you. I believe in every word.”

“In the last life. You found me. You came into a dimly lit bar and sat near me. And you looked at me, without any knowledge of us, and said, “Hello,” and I said hello back. And you came to my apartment and we made love. But I was born into a mess in that life, and though I loved you as I do now, I had flaws that despite our passion and happiness, doomed our love for that lifetime. Even though we are a force that is drawn together, we are always to be in the bodies of sometimes flawed or ruined people who have complications in their life that often complicate us. They have emotions and fears and doubts and insecurities that might cause us struggle if we choose not to see.” He gets up and opens his backpack and pulls out the book and present it to her.

“This,” he says, “This is our story. When I taught I was into Zen Buddhism and this was written from such deep meditations that awoke in me the truth of our real existence. These are all the lives I remember us to have lived. Eighty-eight of them. There might be more, maybe that you will remember, but these are those that came to me. Some are merely moments of those, and nothing is written in its entirety. I wanted to give you this book. That is why I am here. So, you know the truth. And now that I found you, I am going home to Lancaster, a small-town about 40 minutes south of here. I visit Rising Park every Sunday at noon and stay there for several hours. I have a friend to stay with until I get back on my feet. It will not be long. I will find another job and wait for you there. It will be your turn to be the searcher.”

“But you’re heart?”

He smiles. “My heart is well again. You have just healed it.”

“What if I don’t have the courage to come?”

“Then I will see you in the next life.” He ambles to the door and puts on his coat and pack.

“You sure you don’t want to stay? For a little longer? I know I am pregnant but – ”

“I would love to stay forever, but this is not my home. And I can feel the conflict in your heart. You will have to decide for yourself what is truth and what is fiction. What you want and what you don't want. Me incessantly petitioning you isn't going to make our case. Read the book. If it is what is inside of you, come home. With your baby.”

Then he is gone. He didn’t say goodbye and he left the door open for her to close. He walks up the street and hops on a bus and is on the highway in a few minutes. He shows up at his friend’s house, who offers him the basement.

There is a guinea pig named Burt in the basement in a large cage and Sam takes care of Burt. He changes his bedding, feeds him, and lets him out to run around the rug or the yard every day. Burt is affectionate and occupies his time as he thinks of Alice.

Many long nights thinking of Alice pass. Many Sundays in the park spent waiting. Watching ducks swim upon the water and the ripples that become of their splashing feet that expand until they disappear into the reflections of the dark green pines on the light green water. One Sunday a flock of Canadian geese came, seemingly only to terrorize the ducks. But they were gone by the following Sunday. He gets lost in meditation, staring at sycamores and at children casting fishing lines into the water hoping for a big catch. He is no different. No one who hopes for real love is. We all have a pole and a line. A hook and our own worm. Some of us our patient and others give up too soon. Everyone has a soulmate, but not everyone understands life beneath the water. And not everyone sees the sky from the eyes of a fish.

Seven Sundays pass and he imagines she will be delivering her baby soon. Perhaps, the baby complicated things for her and this just wasn’t their time. Maybe a year from now, or two, when her boyfriend decides to leave, or when she leaves because of his indifference and for the fact that she doesn't love him. It is of no matter whether it is next Sunday, or their last Sunday of life. He will be waiting for her on that park bench, and he will see her again.