Frank pushed the wheelchair up the ramp and into the restaurant. He had just gotten a job helping the needy. His job description was just that vague. He figured it was a fulfilling job and would help him pay off his student loans while he went to college. He worked every weekend. Sometimes he worked with kids, sometimes he worked with the elderly. Today he was working with people with mental disabilities. He set the wheelchair in a safe position and motioned for the guy behind him to follow him.
“Come on, Jon,” he said, “I think you’ll like the food here.”
Jon looked around anxiously and let out a low pitch sigh. He put both hands on his head and said, “The vectors. The vectors are all wrong.”
“Come on now, don’t be nervous. I eat here all the time. The food is delicious. I wonder where Chris is. His parents were supposed to drop him off around now. He’ll probably show up in a couple of minutes.”
Not only did he get paid for taking out the handicapped for lunch, but he also got a free meal out of it and his college counted it as community service.
“Okay, Shawn, let’s get those straps off your arms and let you relax a bit.
This guy is a lot nicer than the last one. His head is a little scary, but so far he seems nice. I hope he gets me something good to eat.
“Okay, now Jon, sit down and try to relax. Listen to the music.”
Jon slid into his chair and looked around, watching the people sitting around, wearing business suits, and the classical music raining down from the ceiling. He grinned a little and felt some of his pressure release. Just then, he squealed and jumped up into the air and yelled, “Fury lies in the tongue root!”
Chris looked out from underneath the table cloth and said with a rather dull voice, “Don’t touch me. I don’t like it when people touch me.” He held a fork defensively by his side.
I hate being associated with people like that. You’d never see me stabbing people and telling them not to touch me. I’m stuck here with two neurologically challenged individuals and some skinhead.
“You must be Chris. Please do not stab Jon.”
“Can you hear the naval fire?”
“This is Shawn and this is Jon. Shawn has cerebral palsy and no one is sure what’s wrong with Jon.”
“You call that a sine graph? Twenty lashes!”
“I like your head. May I feel it?”
Frank Delgado towered over the short, fairly round child from
England. He bent down and Chris slowly reached out his hand and put it against the fuzzy globe. He rubbed his hand back and forth and smiled maniacally. Chris had never thought about how many hairs a person might have on their head until he was a full head of stubble. He took a moment to try to get a realistic estimation but his train of thought was interrupted.
“The sponge of the Lord is upon us!”
I’m in a three ring circus. Well, this is probably still more entertaining than spending another evening at home, pointed at the weather channel for hours.
Frank put his hand on Jon’s shoulder and Jon immediately looked directly into his eyes and started shaking less. “You have to try to calm down. Now is a time to relax. There, that’s better.”
“How may I help you today?”
“Oh hello. Do you have any thick soups or anything like that?”
“We have New England Clam Chowder as the soup of the day.”
Ooh! That must be for me. I love that stuff.
“We’ll have some of that for my friend Shawn here in the wheelchair. And Jon over here will have a children’s chicken fingers. Chris, what do you want?”
Chris pointed at something on the menu, “What color is that?”
“Your parents already talked to the chef. We can make you some red tortellini with red sauce. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
“And, I’ll have the sirloin. Well done, please.”
“Thank you, your food will be ready shortly.”
The waiter walked away and Chris held his fork firmly and continued to stare at Frank’s bald, shiny head. “Did you kill my neighbor’s dog?”
“Excuse me?”
“If you know my parents, then you must have known my neighbor and her dog. I’ve also watched videos that said bad things about people with shiny heads.”
“I’m not a neo-Nazi, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’ve never actually met your parents. I’ve talked to them once on the phone about this program and what we do. The organization I work for figures it’s a nice break to get out and go to a fancy restaurant every once in a while. I don’t even know your neighbor or her dog.”
“Oh.” Chris absorbed what he had just heard and let it settle a little bit to make room for more. “Why is your head like that?”
“I shaved it. Most people don’t do that, but I did to defy social standards. It has a lot to do with my political views. Are you interested in politics?”
My parents used to talk about politics a lot. My dad is a republican while my mom is a democrat. They used to argue over who each of them should vote for.
“I asked my dad once about politics, but I didn’t understand most of it. We learned a little bit about government in school. It seems very disorganized. One of the teachers asked me a lot of questions once and told me I was liberal.”
Jon turned his napkin into a hat and started humming a song that he had just made up. Frank held a cup of ice water up to Shawn and let him try to take a few sips. Most of it got on his bib, and he accidentally swallowed an ice cube, but he was secretly thankful for the gesture.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but what religion are you?”
“My dad said I’m an atheist when I asked him. People only believe in God because they are afraid of not existing. They feel like there has to be someone watching over them or they will be helpless. They believe in God because they can’t comprehend not existing and there are a lot of things that can’t be explained.”
“Well, there is a bit more to faith than that. Some people have had divine experiences.”
“There are some bad people that live down the street from me who do drugs and play loud music.”
“That’s a very good point.”
I try not to think about God. Thinking about it generally irritates me. If there is a God, then why would He let me be born like this? I think things like that and start to get angry. Then I remember something I heard on television once: “No one knows the Lord’s plan.”
“Hard cold burning old doggy dog dog,” said Jon, as he ran to the bathroom.
“Hold on, he generally makes a mess whenever he goes in there.”
Frank got up and went after Jon and left Chris and Shawn with a moment to share. Chris spent most of the time staring as Shawn curiously.
What are you looking at?
“Can you hear me?”
Shawn spent a moment writhing before blurting out, “Glemm.”
Frank and Jon came back to the table, covered in water, and Jon sat down giggling.
“That wasn’t funny,” said Frank. “Now, where were we?”
“Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!”
“You calm down. Oh, yes, there is more to faith than just trying to explain things we don’t fully understand. The earliest forms of religion were actually forms of governments.”
Are all skinheads this smart?
“Many religions started out as local lore or myth. Do you like myths?”
“I don’t like stories that are lies.”
“They’re not lies, they’re just fantasy.”
“But they are things that are not true that people say are true.”
“So you’re more of a nonfiction person?”
“I watch a lot of videos about space and the ocean and other things. I also read some books. I do like books about Sherlock Holmes.”
“Sherlock Holmes is made up.”
“I like Sherlock Holmes because he systematically uses his mind to solve problems.”
“Sine squared times cosine squared minus one equals Armageddon.”
Frank smiled as the food arrived. He enjoyed the conversation, but he felt like he needed a small break. They were all very nice, but they gently tugged on his patience every chance they got. Chris took a very long time to answer any question, Jon was stuffing his pockets with chicken fingers, and Shawn was completely covered in drool.
He took a deep breath and slowly released it. He wiped off Shawn’s face and started spooning clam chowder into his mouth. Jon suspiciously nibbled on a chicken finger. Chris very systematically ate his food. He ate it in eights, going counterclockwise. He started at around eight o’clock on his plate.
After they ate for a while, Frank and Chris started talking for a while. They talked a bit more about religion and the concept of God. Shawn listened intently. They also started talking about how Chris was studying math and was better at it than anyone else he knew. They spent a while, exchanging math problems and just generally getting along. Jon was enjoying himself very much, using his straw as a noise maker. Shawn had learned more in the past hour than he had throughout most of his life.
Chris’ dad showed up to bring him home and looked at Frank suspiciously. He brought him home and Frank looked down at the cold, untouched steak on his plate. He decided it was time to head home and had the waiter put the steak in a little foam box and paid the bill. He cleaned off Shawn’s face and coaxed Jon to follow him to the company van. Jon screamed playfully as he loaded Shawn into the van and started to bring them home. “This was a nice night,” he said to Shawn.
Tonight was very interesting in many ways.
Jon clapped a few times and yelled, “The end!”
