A Good Day
Zephaniah Sole
At 7:28 a.m., Jacob and Elna, hand in hand, entered the Starbucks directly across the street from Jacob’s condominium. Jacob wore his athletic-fit, single-breasted, navy blue suit with a white dress shirt. Cutaway collar. No tie. Elna wore her low rise, cigarette-leg stretch jeans, with camel suede heels and matching leather jacket with a belted waist. Elna was even taller in those heels, reaching Jacob’s height when she corrected her posture. She was a redhead, a real one, with green eyes, a rare find, and lightning didn’t strike half as hard as her figure, so Jacob was used to the stares the coffee shop denizens cast in their direction. He was also used to the underlying tension in most of those stares.
At 7:31 a.m. as Jacob and Elna waited on line, a man entered the Starbucks and casually stepped directly in front of them.
Jacob breathed and told himself there was simply some misunderstanding. He counted to five. But this man, his back to Jacob so only the light brown hair of his slicked back ‘do was visible over the collar of his grey sharkskin suit, did not budge. Jacob looked to Elna, but her eyes were glazed, lost in deciding whether to get her usual tall shaken iced green tea, or treat herself to a tall iced caramel macchiato. Jacob stepped over to the man. He and Elna had discussed these very situations the night before when she’d given him the news. It worried her, she’d confided, the ease with which he fell into a rage when such incidents occurred. “You need to let stuff go,” she had said, and Jacob had closed his eyes in thought. “You ever swim with a life jacket on?” he’d responded.
“Of course,” she’d said.
“No, I mean, like swim, swim. For a long distance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s easier to swim without one. But it’s safer to keep it on, right? So I hear you. I’m just saying, it’s not that easy to let go of your life jacket.”
She’d nodded and taken his hand and placed it on her lower belly.
Then she’d said the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.
So, with those words ringing in his ears, Jacob decided to not startle the man, or Elna, or any of the café habitués. He forced his voice to leave his throat as softly and evenly as possible. “’Scuse me, sir. There’s a line.”
The man did not respond.
Elna shifted her feet and kept her photogenic eyes trained on the menu overhead. She chewed her bottom red-painted lip in vacuous indecision. Let us be your life jacket, she had said to Jacob the night before. Do you have any second thoughts? she’d asked, and Jacob had shaken his head with a vociferous ‘no.’ Then let us be your life jacket.
“Excuse me,” Jacob cautiously repeated to the man. “There is a line.”
The man looked through Jacob as if he weren’t there. “Wasn’t trying to skip you, buddy.”
“But you just did.”
The man turned his back on Jacob and stepped to the cashier. “Yeah, I’ll have a…”
Jacob’s body delved into that familiar mode of fight or fight. He had no interest in flight. He thought to physically brush the man aside, tell the cashier he and Elna were skipped, then place his own order. If anyone had an issue with that, it was just that, their issue. Then again, there were other perspectives to consider, particularly Elna’s. And maybe at some point, as Jacob had once read, a man does need to accept that when a specific issue rears its head over and over again, like it did so many times before—like it did with Katherine—then it may be time to look within instead of without for the necessary change.
Jacob leaned toward Elna as the man said, “…tall vanilla latte.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I love you,” he whispered.
Elna smiled and returned his kiss in a way that felt as if she were rewarding him for positive behavior. “Me too,” she said. “Sure you don’t want me to come back tonight?”
“Me and Danny need a boys’ night out.”
She squeezed his hand. The sharkskin man vanished, banished by Jacob’s efforts to ignore him. Jacob placed his order. “Chai tea latte. Please. Tall. And whatever she’s getting.” Elna smiled at the cashier. She decided to stick to her iced green tea. “Less caffeine,” she said and winked at Jacob, who grinned back with the effort to banish his own second thoughts.
*
At 8:17 a.m., Jacob shifted at his ergonomic standing desk and re-read his most recent e-mail: “It’s still Monday morning Jacob. Give people time to respond to your request.”
Jacob did what he often did in such moments of electronic conflict. He cast his eyes toward the crystal statuette sitting in the corner of his cubicle. That statuette had been handed to him the year prior, by the Director himself, in recognition for Jacob’s Dedication to Service and Teamwork throughout the execution of a multi-pronged consolidation project. When confronting new challenges it was good to remember past success. He hit reply-all: “I don’t mean to rush anyone, but it has been three months.”
At 8:19 a.m., Jacob’s gaze was drawn to Drew’s IM response:
“Please call me.”
Jacob took a breath. Peered at his statuette. Thought about the pale fullness of Elna’s body and the visible changes it would soon undergo. Then he mentally constructed the sequence of five premises he would posit to Drew in a most calm and objective manner:
One. Three months ago, Pat, a member of Drew’s staff, had been tasked with an analysis for the Ellison project, which Jacob was managing.
Two. A month and a half after this tasking, Pat had not initiated any steps toward its completion and stated he would not do so since he wasn’t a member of Jacob’s working group.
Three. Jacob told Pat that the assignment came not from him, but from the front office, as Pat was the only available analyst, and that if Pat had an alternative solution in mind he would be happy to consider it.
Four. Pat told Jacob he would speak with his direct supervisor, Drew, and get back to him.
Five. After another month and a half with no communication from Pat, Jacob had no choice but to initiate the flurry of messages that started at 8:04 a.m. when Jacob e-mailed Pat, cc’ed Drew, and requested a status update.
Jacob planned to state these unarguable facts. He also planned to not state the unavoidable conclusion: that Drew needed to manage his team and tell Pat to do the job, or, Drew needed to assign it to someone else. No, Jacob would let Drew draw that inevitable conclusion independently. Then he would thank Drew, profusely, for Drew’s insight and problem-solving capability. And when Pat, or the suitable replacement, completed the analysis, Jacob would extol their efforts regardless of the fact that Pat had placed the project three months behind. Jacob planned to do these things because that, he thought as he remembered Elna’s hair cascading over his belly that morning, was how you won friends and influenced people.
Smiling congenially, for he had also once read that people can feel your smile through the telephone, Jacob dialed Drew’s extension.
“This is Drew.”
“Hey, Drew. Jacob.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m… fine.”
“Just, the tone of your emails, man. Very antagonistic.”
“I… I didn’t mean to be antagonistic, I’m just trying to get—”
“Well, if you want people to work with you? You should show a little more tact.”
“Drew, it’s been three—”
“And I’m sure this issue has come up with you before? In your past?”
“My past?” Jacob looked at the crystal statuette of his Director’s Award. “How has… look, we’re really behind.”
“Then I suggest you get that analysis done.”
“Pat was—”
“Pat’s overtasked. I already told the front office.”
“Do you have anyone else?”
“No, Jacob.”
“Drew, this isn’t—”
“You’re a rock star. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
“Drew—”
“Have a good day Jacob.” Then Drew hung up the phone.
*
At 5:37 p.m., Jacob walked down an avenue in the city’s gentrified warehouse district. He glanced upward at the condominium conversions on either side of the street and wondered if he could sell his current home and purchase one of these instead, for the condos here tended to have walls of exposed brick. Jacob loved exposed brick. He also loved Katherine, his ex, who walked beside him. Katherine was tall and slender and pale, like Elna. Jacob definitely had a type. Unlike Elna, Katherine’s hair was jet black. With her ice-blue eyes she struck a dramatic portrait in color. Jacob was certain that Katherine did not love him. He wasn’t certain if she ever did. To her credit, she did love Daniel, their son, age six, who strolled and ran in spurts ahead. Jacob kept one eye on Daniel and one eye on the man across the street who walked parallel, staring and sneering.
“I’m sorry,” Katherine said.
“It’s like that award came with a muthafuckin target on my back,” said Jacob, “all complete with the bullseye and shit. Front and center. Saying, keep this dude in place.”
Katherine laughed uncomfortably. “I think you’re overanalyzing.”
“Really?”
“They are assholes, but that’s got nothing to do with it.”
“That’s got everything to do with it. Look how those assholes still feel they can recreate my past.”
Katherine shook her head and avoided eye contact and Jacob chose to close his mouth. He reminded himself they were not together anymore. There was no need to re-hash their differences in such conversations. Their relationship had taught him lessons he needed to learn, lessons he would apply in his current commitment to Elna. As for the lessons Katherine did or did not learn, Jacob hoped—for Daniel’s sake, not his own— that Katherine would one day pull her head out of the sand.
Then something wonderful happened.
The man across the street, still walking parallel, shouted. “Hey! Hey! What do you call a….” he interrupted himself with a cackle. “A black lawyer. A black doctor. And a, a black president?” The man laughed again.
Katherine sped up. Jacob chuckled with a strange joy. “Here we go.”
“Yeah, you got it,” the man continued. “A bunch of fucking niggers.”
“He’s mentally ill,” Katherine said. “Ignore him.”
“Danny,” Jacob called, and their son turned. Jacob beckoned the boy toward them. Daniel obeyed. Jacob grabbed his hand. “Need you to stay close now, all right?” The boy nodded.
“That’s right,” the man across the street pointed at Jacob. “I’m talking to you, nigger.”
“Katherine,” Jacob said, “take Danny in case this shit breaks bad.”
“And what the fuck are you doing?” The man pointed at Katherine. “Fucking this monkey. Making nasty little monkey babies.”
“Just ignore him,” Katherine said mechanically.
“Katherine. Take Danny. Now.”
Katherine sighed and picked up Daniel and she and Jacob kept walking.
“Yeah, that’s right. You’re still just a fucking nigger.”
What struck Jacob most was the reaction, or lack thereof, of the pedestrians walking up and down the avenue in full view of this incident. They walked by, oblivious, or doing a good job of pretending to be. Even Katherine, a direct recipient of the man’s vitriol refused to look anywhere but directly ahead.
The man screamed. “Support your local KKK!”
Katherine muttered. “I just want to stay positive.”
*
At 6:24 p.m., Jacob sat on a park bench, looking at the golden brown skin on his son’s naked back, and felt himself immersed in the blueness of time. Oceans had been crossed. Bones had been burnt. Lives had been evaporated. And still, Jacob and Daniel were there.
Daniel jumped and splashed in the playground fountain by the small man-made lake downtown. He made friends easily, and when he grew bored with the fountain, and made his way to the concrete steps before the lake, two little girls about his age, who appeared to be sisters, followed. Jacob watched the three children talk amongst themselves casually, wading up to their knees in the lake. A mother duck, four of her babies in tow, swam nearby, and the two girls grew excited at the sight of the ducklings. Daniel grew calm and gently placed his hand, palm up, on the surface of the water. He waited. As the girls giggled, the ducklings swam toward Daniel and gently pecked at his palm. The mother duck, close behind, monitored the situation.
From a bench nearby a woman sprang to her feet and rushed toward the lake. She wore a chiffon blouse that showcased her breast enhancement and high-waisted tailored shorts that displayed salon-tanned legs. “Girls,” she called out with a voice whose severity did not match her porcelain features and strawberry blonde hair. “Don’t touch the baby ducks.” One of the girls, a spitting image of the woman rewound in time, looked up and was about to protest, but the woman yelled as she stepped to the lake, “The mama duck. Will. Bite you.”
The mother duck grew agitated, opened her beak, and swam closer to her ducklings.
“See?” the woman said. “Don’t touch the babies.”
“You can touch them,” Daniel spoke up. “You just have to—”
“I’m not talking to you,” the woman snapped at Daniel. “I’m talking to my kids.”
That was enough. Jacob hustled over to the lake, ignoring the woman who also ignored him, and beckoned to Daniel. When Daniel reached Jacob, he handed the boy his shirt and tousled the wet curls of his hair. “Ice cream?” Jacob said. Daniel smiled, put on his shirt, and took his father’s hand. Jacob led him away from the lake. “After ice cream, there’s something I want to talk to you about, man to man.”
“Okay,” Daniel said and waved goodbye to the girls, who waved back.
“Don’t talk to boys like that,” Jacob heard the girls’ mother say. “They’re just show-offs.”
*
At 6:47 p.m., Jacob’s cell phone rang. He saw the incoming call was from Elna. He ignored it. She knew better than to bother him while he was spending time with Daniel. They were standing on line, hand in hand, in one of the trendy artisanal ice cream shops downtown. Jacob looked up at the menu. He knew Daniel would eat anything chocolate. He decided he would try one of the new flavors that involved blue cheese. Why not?
Daniel looked through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the ice cream shop as couples and families waited and conversed happily amongst themselves. The spring sunset cast a bluish-green hue over the downtown buildings, and cool air wafted in through the open door. Air that had traveled from the nearby mountain and the nearby coast. Air that entered Daniel’s chest and made him smile. As the line moved away from the door, Daniel instead moved toward it. His father pulled him close. He looked up at Jacob. “Can I wait outside?” Jacob glanced around, hesitant. “Yeah man, just stay by the window where I can see you, all right?” Daniel nodded and rushed out of the store, into the air that beckoned him to walk toward the sunset and toward the ocean 80 miles west of the city. But he did not move. He obeyed his father. He stayed in front of the shop window. Leaned against it. Breathed in the evening.
Inside the shop, the line moved forward and Jacob’s phone beeped. He pulled it out. It was an old school flip phone. Jacob hated smart phones. But he could still discern Elna’s text on its tiny exterior screen: “Did you tell Danny the news?!” He silenced the phone then looked out the window to check on Daniel. Jacob froze.
The line extended to the exterior of the shop, and on the line, outside, was a large, bearded man who appeared to be in his 60’s, holding a cane. For some reason Jacob did not care to determine, the man was poking Daniel in the ribs with this cane.
Jacob rushed outside, caught the hurt and confused look on his son’s face, and stepped between Daniel and the man with the cane.
“What are you doing?” Jacob demanded.
The man was very tall and he looked down at Jacob and spoke as if Jacob were also a six-year-old boy. “He shouldn’t lean on the window.”
“You don’t need to poke him with your cane.”
“Well,” the man said with a smirk and a glint of mirth in his Santa Claus blue eyes, “He didn’t respond to ‘Hey, kid.’”
“His name isn’t kid.” Jacob let the full force bass of his voice loose from his belly and chest. “So why the fuck would he respond to that?”
The line grew silent. Two men, Jacob’s age, approached the man with the cane, and stood by his side. One of these men spoke. “Do we need to call the police?”
Jacob reeled. The man with the cane, emboldened by the receipt of communal support, stepped closer to Jacob. “Calm down,” he said. “Maybe take a walk. It’s a nice night.”
“Step back from me and my son,” Jacob thundered. The man smirked and took another step forward. “Calm down. Go take a walk.”
The phone buzzed again. Jacob gripped it tight, turning his fist into a more effective club.
“Go on,” the man said. “Take a walk. Answer your phone.”
Jacob considered the calculus of striking the man in the jaw. The man tumbling to the concrete. The ensuing chaos. The two younger men rushing Jacob. Daniel getting hurt in the melee. Someone from the crowd of eyes calling 911. The arrival of the police. Jacob’s attempt to articulate why he stood his ground and struck this man who had crossed the acceptable physical boundaries of both himself and his son, a six-year-old boy, an innocent, who stayed by the window as his father had commanded and watched this scene unfold, trembling and imagining a day when he would walk and walk to the crashing surf of ocean shore, wade into the briny blue and swim and swim and swim.
Zephaniah Sole is a multicultural entity writing from the Pacific Northwest. His writing is published or forthcoming in Epiphany and Gargoyle Magazine.