Marvin Finds a Home by Patrick Sean Lee (ebook offline .txt) 📕

  “Please be calm. You needn’t be angry with your daughter; she has a heart of gold. It was at my request that she brought me to your home and allowed me to clean up after the day that I’ve had. The years I’ve had, in fact.”

        Marvin stood before them, framed in the opening like a worn out statue of a god in the Pantheon. In his arms he held some of the books he had stolen, and he seemed resigned to certainty that he would be ejected back out onto the streets. There was no fear or apprehension in his face, nor did he appear to be overwhelmed by the stature of the family gathered before him. He seemed, rather, to possess a calm, like the convergence of all of the eyes of every storm on the planet. Maribeth thought, on looking over at him, that he had gained something higher in composure, something mysteriously peaceful. The governor was taken aback on seeing this man standing there dressed in his own clothes, and stammered for a second, quite uncharacteristically.

    “Now look here, Mr….Mr….”

    “Fuster. Marvin Q. Fuster,” Marvin said dropping his gaze slightly.

    "Yes, Mr. Fuster. Well, then, Mr. Fuster…” He suddenly hesitated. “Where did you get those clothes!”

        Marvin dropped his gaze in embarrassment.

         “I gave them to him, Daddy. He was dressed in rags!” Maribeth blurted. Smoke and water-ruined, certainly, but not exactly rags. Governor Harris raised an eye, infuriated with his little Mare.

        “You must understand that I can’t allow a perfect stranger to just waltz into my home on the arm of my daughter, no matter how altruistic her motives. To say nothing of raiding my closet.”

         “I quite understand.”

        “Yes. Well, I’m glad to hear that. We know very little at all about you, and it would be foolish of us to allow you to stay here. My daughter,” he said, motioning across the desk at Maribeth, “is captivated by the idea that she can rescue every homeless creature in the city, and it was merely an annoyance up until now. This is a new, unacceptable departure for her, you understand.”

         “Daddy!”

        “Be quiet, Maribeth. You’ve had your say. Now, sir, I’ll arrange to have a cab pick you up here and take you back to your …er, home, or anywhere else that you desire. You know there are hostels throughout the city for men who find themselves in situations such as yours. I can certainly make arrangements to have you put up in one if you like. A phone call is all it will take. And you may keep the clothes”

       “That won’t be necessary, Governor, though it is kind of you to offer. My loading dock is quite comfortable, even if it gets a bit breezy there at times. In fact, you needn’t even call for a cab, though I thank you for that, too. I’m used to walking and the night is perfect for it. I need to think a bit, anyway. The walk will do me good,” Marvin answered him.

        “Oh, Daddy! You wouldn’t just throw him out. You can’t be so heartless, you just can’t be! How would you feel sleeping under some old loading ramp. It’s inhuman of you to think of such a thing. Please, let him stay in the guest room downstairs for just this evening. I beg you, Daddy. One night won’t hurt a thing, and I did run over him. We owe him that. Just tonight. He’s tired and beaten up, thanks to me, and all he wants to do is read and sleep in a comfortable bed for the first time in his life. Please!”

        Maribeth got up and rushed to the side of her elderly friend and ushered him and his armload of books back to the chair in which she had just been sitting. The governor looked to his wife who stood close beside him, her right arm tucked safely under his, then he addressed Marvin again.

        “My daughter says you have no real formal education, Mr. Fuster, but that you are able to read these books you are carrying at a phenomenal speed. Is this true?”

        “Yes, it is, sir, and many other equally baffling things have occurred today as well. Please don’t ask me to explain them, though, as I don’t have a clue as to why myself. Well, yes I do…but she is correct in what she has said.”

        “What exactly are you reading there?” he asked, pointing to the books in Marvin’s lap.

        Marvin picked up the top book and turned it right side up so that he could read the title.

        “This one is ‘String Theory: The History of Everything’, by Rolf Nieman. I haven’t had time to open it just yet, but I’m certain it will be of great interest to me, and helpful as well.”

        “String theory. Ahh! I have a love of music, myself. Had I not gotten involved in politics, I believe I might have taken up the violin seriously, or perhaps the cello. Have you ever been to the symphony, Mr. Fuster?” The governor beamed; a chord deep inside him began to resonate, and a soft breeze rustled across his face and into his heart, as though nature itself was beginning to conspire against him in order to obliterate his initial assessment of Marvin’s stature in his world. This man of the streets spoke well and had a love for music, and that raised him immeasurably in the eyes of Richard Harris. Perhaps he would allow him to stay for an hour or two so that they could discuss Dvorak and Massenet.

        “No, I believe you are referring to a different type of string, sir. Though I do not pretend to know a great deal about the subject yet, the string this book refers to is a quantum matter, altogether on a different plane than music…though I do like certain types of Bluegrass, and folk music,” Marvin corrected him.

       “Bluegrass? Bluegrass? I don’t think that I’d admit to such a thing. That garbage is a thrown together hodgepodge of tin cans and backwoods fiddles as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather listen to a cow pissing on a flat rock!”

        “Richard!” Trish was not impressed with her husband’s choice of words. “Sometimes I wonder at your manners. I doubt Mr. Fuster hears such language, even where he comes from. Isn’t that right Mr. Fus…oh, forgive me. I didn’t mean to imply…”

        “I take no offense, Mrs. Governor. No apology is required,” Marvin replied in an effort to rescue her. “While it is probably true that Bluegrass is of a quite different mother than the tunes played at the symphony halls, I find it full of life…like a squadron of geese hightailing it north in the late spring, or young boys who have suddenly discovered that there exists an opposite sex, and that they are meant to be kissed. It is raucous, at times, but it is vibrant in a way all its own. I think it has grown out of the very earth itself.”

        The governor sat down, corrected by the humble looking drunk. It seemed they would not be discussing opera or Bach. He reached for a long Cuban cigar in the humidor before him on the desk and carefully eyed the man who pondered physics and mathematics, but evidently preferred tin cans to grand pianos as he moistened the end of the expensive Havana with his mouth. He wondered if Marvin played chess…or was he fonder of checkers?

        “Don’t misunderstand me, sir,” Marvin continued. “The sound of an entire symphony orchestra suddenly erupting to life, as in…well, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capricio Espanol comes immediately to mind. The power and exuberance of that kind of experience must leave one breathless. I don’t know. I’ve never had the opportunity to hear such a thing in person, but I can imagine it, nonetheless. Still, there is much to be said for guitars and banjos and fiddles played with the heart of a hundred children flying about on a playground. I have seen that, and it left me just as breathless. There is an almost godlike majesty in just about any music played with spirit and abandon and honesty, wouldn’t you agree?”

     “Well, yes, I suppose I would,” the governor replied. “As long as you put it that way, I guess a case could be made for your position. But how is it that you are familiar with Rimsky-Korsakov? Only in the world of classical music lovers would a person be as intimately familiar with the Capricio as you appear to be.”

         Marvin had to think about the question for a moment or two, but then he answered.

        “I don’t know. I suppose I’ve heard it somewhere back…no. No, I know it too well. Every note, as though I’ve heard it a thousand times. Strange. I’m sorry, I simply can’t answer your question, sir. I just don’t know.”

        Richard was amazed, in a way. Not that Marvin was correct (he might not be), but that he found himself believing he could be. He imagined he might well be not just a chess player, but a master of that ancient game. And he suddenly liked the man. He didn’t yet want him to become a boarder, but he liked him. Compared to the educated Aldous Bunsmeier, this Marvin Fuster of the streets was a breath of frigid January air, invigorating and refreshing. Though it was still early in their encounter, he perceived no airs in this gentleman, rough and beaten by his own hand though he probably was, and he liked that.

        Marvin sat back in his chair. Maribeth and Trish stood looking down at him in silence. Trish was somewhat awed by what he was saying to her husband, who was no fool and possessed an uncanny ability, sharpened by years in the political barrooms, to cut through even the most adept liar’s baloney. Her husband, she thought, seemed to be impressed by him.

        “I am a fool, but I am thankfully alive. Sir, my future has not yet unfolded before me, but I am confident that every good thing is in it. Every good thing that can be dreamed of,” Marvin said out of the blue.

        “I beg your pardon?” Richard asked.

        “Stay or leave, a course has been charted for me by whom I do not know for certain, but a course that will draw me near to the one I love, and into a future holding an even grander purpose, perhaps. I have a thousand years to accomplish whatever it might be. Ten lifetimes!”

        With that he rose from the chair, quietly arranged his books into an orderly fashion under his right arm, and smiled deeply, and somewhat forlornly, at his hosts.

        “Well, I must go. It has been a pleasure to have met you, Governor.” Turning to Trish, he added. “You have a lovely daughter, madam, with a heart and spirit given to scale lofty heights. Continue to cherish this child, she is going to make you very proud someday.” To Maribeth, he offered his free hand, a smile, and a gentle kiss on her cheek.

        “With your parents’