Whatever Happened to the Love

Andy used to think about love a lot. When he was young and stupid, he thought his heart was so wide open, love must be something you could stumble onto while just walking down the street. Then, after his heart got broken a few times too many, he started imagining love to be a quiet, still place that always seemed to dangle just out of his reach. He looked around at all the people walking hand in hand, two by two, and couldn't help thinking the whole world was an ark, but somewhere along the way, he'd forgotten the way on board. Then Andy realized he really didn't know very much about love after all. So he decided to ask some people.

The first person Andy asked was old Mr. Henderson, who was sort of a fixture in Wilmington. Mr. Henderson was eighty-seven, and he took the bus into Wilmington from Marsboro every morning, rain or shine. He'd walk all around the downtown, usually have breakfast at the Olympic Steak Shop, then settle down on a park bench across from Market Square. Every day, Mr. Henderson was impeccably dressed, wearing one of his dozens of hand tailored suits, with matching shoes, suspenders, hats, and oldtime folded handkerchiefs. He'd wave and smile at everyone he saw, especially the ladies, and everyone always had a kind word for him when they'd stop to talk.

Andy had never spoken with Mr. Henderson before about anything other than what a snappy dresser he was. As he approached him on the park bench, he saw Mr. Henderson was reading the morning edition of the Wilmington News Journal. The noontime sun reflected off the white of the newspaper, and seemed to bounce up at the brim of Mr. Henderson's straw hat, illuminating the lines in his wizened, golden brown face. Some pigeons lurked nearby, drawn by the freshly baked smell of whatever was in the slightly oily brown paper bag sitting next to Mr. Henderson on the bench.

When Andy got close, Mr. Henderson looked up from his paper. He looked right at him, and snorted. "Young man, do you believe in God?"

Andy had to stop and think about it. On one hand, he didn't, really, he thought the world was too screwed up for any all powerful being to be in charge. On the other, who could say for sure. "Yeah, sometimes," he replied.

Mr. Henderson seemed to relax a little. "That's right you do. Young man, look at that sunshine. Do you see that sunshine?"

Andy looked across the street and up in the sky at the sun over the tops of all the buildings in Market Square. The glow on his face felt good. It was May, and the sun wasn't so hot you couldn't stand to let it wash over you like a stream, not worrying about getting your clothes all sweaty, or dying a premature death from skin cancer. Andy didn't use anti-perspirant, only deodorant, because there was aluminum in the anti-perspirants, and he had seen a special once on 20/20 about how aluminum caused Alzheimer's. Ever since, Andy also only drunk from glass bottles.

He nodded, and Mr. Henderson continued. "That's a sight only God could bless us with, you see? Took how many billions of years to make that sun, and don't think God couldn't snuff it out right today if he wanted to."

Andy sat down on the bench and took a deep breath. He didn't know exactly how to put what he wanted to talk with Mr. Henderson about, but he started anyway.

"Mr. Henderson, you know, I see you downtown all the time," Andy said. "I mean, you're always here, and everyone knows you, and you're always talking to somebody about something. What do you talk about with everybody?"

The old man laughed, folded up his newspaper, and set it down on the bench. "Folks talk with me about God, and the weather, and about how life is good to us, if we'll let it," he said.

"What do you do when you're not in downtown Wilmington?" asked Andy. "Where do you go when you're not here?"

Mr. Henderson looked at him a little funny. "Why d'ya wanna know that?"

"I'm not trying to be nosy," said Andy. "I'm just curious, I wondered if maybe you had a wife or anything. She must be real proud of you being a local celebrity."

Mr. Henderson cupped his hand to peer up towards the sky. "My wife died twenty years ago," he said quietly. "Cancer. Came on all of a sudden, no warning."

Andy had figured he was either never married or a widower, and thought his story would go something like that. But now, sitting on a park bench three feet away from Mr. Henderson, listening to him tell it, he suddenly felt really ashamed, and wondered why in the hell he'd dragged the old man into this.

"Nothing for me to do, usually, just sitting around at home, staring at the idiot box, or the walls. I come into town because I like being around people." Now Mr. Henderson was looking at him with eyes wide open, having bared a little of his soul, expecting something back. Andy fought the urge to mumble some excuse about needing to be someplace and get up from the bench. Instead, he opened his mouth and started speaking, slowly at first, then faster and faster, the words spilling out of him all at once, trying to tell Mr. Henderson why he was there.

"I just wondered," said Andy, "because I'm kind of alone myself, and sometimes I feel like there's nobody out there for me. I've had girlfriends, and it's been wonderful, being together with someone for awhile, but eventually, they all leave. And it never works out, nothing ever works out, and I just don't know what to do, how to go on. Why can't I find love? Why is it so hard to find someone who feels the same way you do, someone you're meant to be with? And then, even if I do find that person, what if they leave? Or something happens to them? Like your wife? How do you go on?"

Mr. Henderson stared at Andy for a long time. Then he shook his head, and stretched out on the park bench a little, digging his heels into the freshly cut grass.

"Young man, you got a troubled soul. Maybe a broken heart or something. Don't worry, if it's God's will, you'll find love. Or it will find you. You can't force these things."

Then Mr. Henderson slowly reached for his paper, unfolded it, and began reading again. Across the street a man walking a dog whistled, and shouted something, and Mr. Henderson looked up, then tipped his hat with a flourish. Andy got up from the bench and walked away, fast. He didn't feel so good all of a sudden.

Later that day, once Andy felt better, he remembered he had a stack of bills sitting in his coat's inside pocket, all ready to mail. So the next person Andy asked about love was Mrs. Tate, who worked at the counter in the Wilmington post office's main branch. The year before, Mrs. Tate had been pregnant with her second baby girl, and now she had a whole wall next to her counter window filled up with snapshots of little Zoe. Some afternoons Zoe would get dropped off from daycare early, and would sit on a high chair right behind Mrs. Tate, sucking on her bottle, looking at the customers in line with wide eyes. Everyone regularly asked about Zoe, even on days she wasn't there.

It was a slow day at the post office, with only two people in front of Andy. He waited his turn, then stepped up to Mrs. Tate's window when she called out "Next!". She saw it was him, asked how he was doing, then took his letters and opened up her book to show him all the new stamps. Andy liked stamps, and usually tried to choose unique ones to go on his letters, even if they were only addressed to the utility companies, like today. Mrs. Tate laughed when he mentioned love.

"Andy, you better watch your step," said Mrs. Tate. "You come in here moping around, convinced love's passed you by. Well, keep that attitude up, and it will, wait and see!"

For some reason, Andy always felt comfortable telling Mrs. Tate about his latest troubles with romance. She never seemed to mind listening, except when the line was backed up with customers.

"I don't know what to do, Mrs. Tate. It's been three months since she moved out, and I'm dating this new girl, but I don't want to get burned again."

Mrs. Tate shook her head. "You're a mess. Child, haven't you ever heard the phrase love the one you're with?"

There weren't a lot of stamps in her book for Andy to choose from, because he only liked the self-adhesive kind. It came down to a choice between famous American poets and a sheet of stamps with twelve different kinds of bats. And of course a sheet of "LOVE" stamps, with a rosebud where the "O" in "LOVE" should have been. Every time the postage went up they'd print a new version of that one. But Andy thought it was silly to stick stamps that said "LOVE" on his mail, unless someday he found somebody to write love letters to. Andy remembered the stack of love letters his father had written to his mother, and how she kept them on the top shelf of her bedroom closet, tied with string. He'd discovered them and read them one night when he was fifteen, and he remembered thinking how incredible it must be to truly be in love, so full of passion that you let your feelings and emotions flow out onto page after page, like his father had, writing to his mother about how wonderful she was, how he thought about her night and day and couldn't bear to live without her.

One year, Andy had thought about buying some "LOVE" stamps, and saving them, because they had just come out with a very pretty style. But then he realized there was no way to tell when he might meet the somebody he'd want to pour out his passions to, and if by then the postage had gone up, he'd have to stick more stamps on the envelope to make up for it, which would ruin the whole romantic effect. So he didn't do it. Now, looking at Mrs. Tate's stamp book, Andy stared hard at the bats with their strange little faces and ears covered by veins, and decided to get them. Mrs. Tate put the book up and began sticking the bat stamps on his mail.

"But how do I know?" asked Andy. "How do I know if I'm really in love?"

Mrs. Tate threw her hands up a little. "You know you're in love when you're happy. If you feel good, lots of energy, and you smile at the people you meet on the street, that's a sure sign you're in love."

Andy had never thought about it like that before. "Maybe I'm not in love. How would I know that?"

"Well, just the reverse," said Mrs. Tate. "If you're exhausted, and feel like every day's a struggle, and find yourself thinking mean thoughts or being mean to other people, chances are you're not in love."

Andy thought this over, but not for too long, because now Mrs. Tate had finished hand stamping and canceling his bills, and sure enough, a line was beginning to form behind him. So he thanked Mrs. Tate, and went along his way.

The last person Andy asked that day was Otis Nyquil, who regularly hung out at the West 4th Street DART stop across from the Adams Four Shopping Plaza. It was getting near rush hour, and Andy liked to catch the bus back to the Delaware Tech park and ride where he kept his car before the streets got clogged with a mad dash of office workers emptying downtown like rats before a flood. Otis lived in one of the poor, ramshackle neighborhoods behind West 4th Street, and every day around four o'clock he bought a chicken sandwich from the McDonalds at Adams Four and a bottle of Mexican beer from the Rodriguez Food Mart, then sat at the DART stop to eat. That's how Andy first got to know him.

When Andy got to the DART stop at four-thirty, Otis was there. He looked like he was done with his sandwich, but was holding a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag. Otis was staring across the street at something so intently he didn't even notice when Andy sat down on the other side of the reinforced plastic bench that curved in a semi-circle beneath the bus stop's plexiglass walls. There was a big ad for the Brandywine Zoo behind Otis, with a picture of a whole family of hyenas sprawled out asleep in the sunshine. The ad read, "TAKE A BREAK, COME TO THE ZOO."

"Hey Otis," said Andy, and Otis turned around so fast he spilled some of his Mexican beer on an old Dominican lady who was sitting right next to him. She started cursing at him real fast in Spanish, and he said some Spanish stuff back to her. Then she got up and made some strange gestures at him Andy didn't recognize while walking away from the DART stop, still swearing loud enough for the whole corner to hear.

"Give me the evil eye?" said Otis, as he turned back to Andy, smiling. "I don't think so. Said I wuz sorry. Andy, why you gotta scare me like that. I was just minding my own bizness over here, checking out this fine girl 'cross the way goin' into the Dolorama, now I gotta worry 'bout some curse. Damn."

Andy felt bad for the old lady, and worried that now maybe Otis wouldn't much feel like talking, but right away Otis seemed to forget about the curse and started asking Andy about something else entirely.

"Say, you seen Hell Up In Harlem yet?"

Andy shook his head. Otis liked old movies, especially ones about kung fu or gangsters or revolutionaries like the SLA or United Fruit of Blackness sticking it to the man. He was always telling Andy about movies he used to see on Saturday afternoons when they'd come on Channel 13's Kung Fu Theatre, three o'clock sharp, right after the Creature Double Feature.

"Hell Up In Harlem. That’s one of my favorite movies of all time," said Otis, then paused to take a sip from his bottle. "I like when his Daddy takes over the town. But boy, that chief of the police. He didn’t like Tommy Gibbs, ‘cuz he was the Black Caesar of the Underworld."

Every time Otis talked about movies with Andy, he usually mentioned this one. By now Andy had heard so much about Hell Up In Harlem he figured he shouldn't actually rent it, even though he'd seen a copy at the Videodrome, a little video store a few blocks past West 4th Street on Maryjane Avenue, because he'd prefer to remember the movie just the way Otis talked about it. The reality couldn't possibly be any better.

Andy leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, facing Otis across the bus stop. "So, Otis, what'd you do last night?"

Otis took another swig from his bottle and laughed. "What'dya think I did? Got me a piece. Wore me out."

Sex was another thing Otis usually talked with Andy about. Otis knew a lot about sex, so Andy figured he probably also knew some things about love.

"You know, every time I see you, you've been sleeping with somebody the night before," said Andy. "What's your secret?"

Otis leaned back against the ad for the zoo and shrugged.
"Sometimes it comes like water. Sometimes you just gotta lie there in your bed and suffer. I had to tell one girl not to come by the other night 'cuz I don't wanna cause no confusion with the other girls."

Now Andy was trying to get serious. "Otis, do you have a steady girl?"

"I got two steady girls," said Otis, as he flashed Andy a wide smile. "One on the outside, plus another one, but she's in Del Central right now. She ain't due out until a year from this May, and then whoo boy, look out!"

"But you don't live with anybody, right?"

Otis shook his head. "Hell no! My main squeeze's got a husband. I get more play on weekdays. That's because her old man be going to work, so she can ease on out of the bed, and come over my way."

"Why do you mess with her," asked Andy, "if she's already married?"

"He suspects I'm messing with her," said Otis. "But he can't prove nothing. Other than that, fuck what he's talking about. I'm gonna keep on getting it till I can't get no more. See, if you ain't treating 'em right, somebody else will. Girls come over my house, I try to show 'em such a good time, nine times out of ten, they be calling me next time they need a little sumthin'."

Andy wasn't convinced. "Isn't that just asking for trouble?"

"I ain't gettin' in no trouble," said Otis. "I ain't like that. Makes no sense to get caught up in some drama with other dudes over a girl. He can't do no more harm to her than you can. It might be bigger and fatter, but it all goes in the same way."

Otis snorted a little and went on. "That's what did in Tommy Gibbs' daddy. All over a little lie 'bout some girl. His real name was Tony King, but in the movie, his name was Zachariah. The chief of the police hired Zachariah to kill her. Then they put it on Tommy Gibbs’ daddy. So his daddy got killed over some bullshit."

"Why does she do that," asked Andy. "Why's she cheating on him?"

"Oh, I was screwing her since before she even met her husband," said Otis, and downed a little more from his bottle. "If you gotta marry somebody with a wild streak, you better watch it. 'Cuz I'm getting it, Tom's getting it, Dick, Harry, the milkman, the cat who sold a hot piece to the judge while you turned your head. Somebody's getting it outside of you."

Andy shook his head. "Bet if she was your wife, she wouldn't cheat on you."

This cracked Otis up. "I ain't never had nobody on lockdown. You ain't got her on lockdown. Lockdown's when you drive her Momma's car around. Go in her house right now and fix yourself something to eat. Fell outta bed and bumped your head twice if you think you got her on lockdown. You can't run that shit down on me. I've been out there longer than you have."

Andy glanced at his watch and realized it was almost quarter to five, so he didn't have much time because his bus came. "What about your other girl, the one in prison. What was she like?"

Otis looked at Andy thoughtfully, and seemed a little sad for a minute. "She tore my screen door off once. 'Cuz I wouldn't give her no money. I got mad. Called her a bitch and everything. I'm out there nailing my screen door back on at three in the morning. Next day, she comes on by like nothing happened. Hi baby, what's happening, you mad at me? You done fucked up my damn door! You don't be tearing up nobody's shit, just 'cuz they won't give you whatchoo want."

"You miss her, right?"

Otis drank some more of his beer and nodded. "Sure. I asked her to stay with me once. But she told me, 'we can't stay together, 'cuz you're too moody.' I'm human, man!"

"Otis, let me ask you something," said Andy. "Have you ever been in love?"

"Yeah, I've been in love," said Otis. "With that girl, 'specially. But like I said, she's not in town no more. I don't know what these girls want around here. Most of them just want the Benjamins. They sure love that money. Whatever happened to the love, back in the year. When you could just talk with the girls."

Andy's eyes got all wide once Otis started talking about love, and his questions came fast. "How do you find someone to fall in love with? How do you know when you've found the right one? I mean, what made you want to move in with your girl?"

Otis stared across the street at the shoppers going in and out of all the Adams Four stores for a while before answering. "It's not who you love. It's who you let love you. I had this dog, see. Came from the pound, he was nothin' but a mutt. Used to tear up my whole crib, messin' with the carpets, my couch, scratch his claws on the damn entertainment center, everything. But after a while, he wuz sleeping by the door every time I left the house, just 'cuz he loved me. I became 'sponsible for that mutt. That's how love is. Once you let somebody love you, you become 'sponsible for them."

Otis' voice was a little slurred by now. Andy figured he'd gone through more than one bottle of Mexican beer that afternoon at the DART stop. But what he was saying made sense, and Andy kept listening.

"Maybe now I don't feel like I'm 'sponsible for nobody, 'cept for myself," said Otis. "But I know there's somebody out there for everybody. And God's gonna deliver me a nice girl one of these days. Probably find one for you, too."

Otis looked up suddenly, and pointed down West 4th Street. "Hey, here comes your bus."

Sure enough, the DART express to Delaware Tech was pulling up, and Andy stood up real quick.

"Thanks, Otis. I needed to hear all that."

Otis stuck out his clenched fist and bumped knuckles with Andy. "Anytime, boy! You alright, you know. Not one of those people all in a hurry, too busy to sit down and talk for awhile. You'll work it out. Stay easy, Andy."

Andy got on the DART and took a seat near the back. He waved to Otis out the window as the bus pulled away, and as Otis waved back Andy could see him do a doubletake as a pretty girl walked by. On the slow trip to the park and ride, Wilmington rush hour traffic snarled all around, he tried to remember everything he'd heard about love that day. By the time the DART let him off at his stop, Andy had decided he still didn't know very much about love, but at least now he had a lot more to think about.