“Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.”
Hubert Humphrey
Utopia 10: My Brother’s Keeper
Jack had fallen asleep with the glass door to the balcony cracked again. A chill hung in the room. It was still dark. He craned his neck to see the clock. 3:43. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders but it was no use. He would not be able to sleep until the door was shut. He got up and hugged himself, making a bee line to the door.
At the door he hesitated. He’d heard something. There it was again. The sound of sobbing. Instead of shutting the door Jack slid it open far enough to slide out to the balcony. There he hugged himself tighter against the chill and listened. He had neighbors on either side of him. The Flackus’s on the right of the balcony and the Mayweathers on the left. Both couples were relatively quite and with the thick walls he rarely heard either of them. As he stood on his balcony the sobbing started again and he located it as coming from the Flackus‘ side of the balcony. Then something that chilled him to the bone, “Chloe…no oh please God no…Chloe.” moaned Jeff’s voice.
Jack walked back into the bedroom and quickly grabbed a coat. He did not own a bathrobe. He walked through his own apartment and went directly to the Flackus’s door. He paused there not sure what he intended to do next. He knocked twice but there was no answer.
“Jeff?” Still no answer.
Jack put his hand on the door handle knowing it would not be locked. He could not think of anyone who locked their door unless they were away for some time. The door swung open and Jack called again, “Jeff?…Is everything alright?” The muffled sound of sobbing came from the bedroom.
Jack struggled with conflicting instincts. The instinct to help a neighbor in need that had been groomed in him since birth, and the taboo against entering another’s home uninvited. The instinct to help won out. Jack stepped inside feeling awkward and intrusive. He could still hear the sobbing and Jeff groaning “No, no!” coming from the bedroom.
Jack slowly advanced toward the bedroom with a sense of dread. A stone was now firmly lodged in his throat. The light on the night stand cast a dim yellow light on the scene. Jeff sat on the edge of the bed, his back is to Jack. Jack can see that he was weeping by the shuttering movements his body made. One of Chloe’s hands disappears into Jeff’s giant clasped hands. The other lay limp on her chest. Jack can see that her finger tips have gone a bluish-purple already.
Jack took another step into the room. He tried to utter Jeff’s name but his voice failed him. He caught sight of Chloe’s face. Her face had a sunken appearance and her lips were the same violet color as her finger tips. But it was the stillness that Jack found most disturbing. He kept expecting her to take a breath even though he knew she would never do so again.
Finally he reached Jeff and placed a hand on his shoulder. New sobs broke free and shook Jeff’s large frame. Jeff squeezed the small cold hand in his harder, but no tears came to his eyes. His eyes were puffy and red rimmed. It was clear that he had been weeping most of the night and no tears were left.
“Come and help me make tea, Jeff.” Jack whispered.
Jeff’s eyes did not leave his wife’s face. His frame shuddered again with fresh tearless sobs.
Jack slid his hand under Jeff’s shoulder and gently pulled upward, encouraging the older man to stand. “Come and help me make tea.” he gently commanded in Jeff’s ear.
Jeff looked up at Jack as though he was noticing him for the first time. His lower lip trembled for a moment and then he turned back to his wife. He gently set her hand on her chest and caressed the hair off of her face. Then he worked to stand up. He had been in the position Jack had found him in most of the night and his arthritis had frozen him there. Jack had to help him to his feet. Jeff grabbed his cane and they began to shuffle slowly to the kitchen with Jack’s hand still under Jeff’s arm supporting him, something Jeff on any other day would never have allowed.
Jack deposited Jeff in a chair at the kitchen table. Jeff sat looking at his hands but he made no comment. Jeff and Chloe’s kitchen was more or less laid out the same as Jack’s. Jack found a tea kettle on the stove and filled it with water. He set it on the stove, and hot oil filled the coil and then the water with heat. Jack was able to find the tea after looking in only 3 cabinets. He chose chamomile for its calming effect and set out 2 cups. All the while Jeff stared straight ahead with unseeing eyes and said nothing.
When the tea had steeped, Jack set the cup in front of Jeff, “I want you to drink this.”
Jeff looked at Jack again as if he had forgotten Jack was with him, or perhaps as though Jack had spoken in some foreign tongue. But he curled his hand around the mug and brought it to his lips. He blew on it gently and then sipped. Jack sat across from Jeff at the small table and took a drink of his own tea. He watched Jeff for a moment. Jeff took two more sips and then he looked at Jack with clear recognition in his eyes.
“Can you get some honey out of the cabinet? I usually drink it sweet.”
Jack looked relieved and then stood to search the cabinets again. “The same one as the tea was in.” Jeff instructed.
Jack brought back the honey and Jeff stirred some of it into his tea. “I know I don’t look it but I know I am had more than my fair share through the years. She was a better woman than I deserved.”
“I know.” Jack said simply.
“She always tried to make me happy.” then he chuckled for a moment, “and you know that was a super human task…And most of the time she did make me happy.”
“You were lucky.”
“Ya know I didn’t meet her until we were older. You’re smart to wait Jack. Too many men get hitched up with the first woman that doesn’t annoy them too much and live to regret it. You should wait for the right one. Your Chloe.”
Jack’s continued bachelorhood was strictly unintentional but it did not appear that this was really a conversation as allowing Jeff his own eulogy. So he gave the first response that sprang into his head. “I should wait for my Chloe.”
And on it went for over two hours as Jeff sang his wife’s praises and Jack agreed. He told Jack about their meeting, about the children, about her being a nurse as Jeff worked as an engineer, and Jack agreed with him whatever he said. As Jeff finished his third cup of tea his eye lids began to droop and he started to take longer breaks between his complements to his wife. Jack rose and placed a hand under Jeff’s shoulder again.
“Why don’t you lay down on the couch for a while?”
Jeff considered this for a moment and then let Jack help him out of his chair. They began their shuffling walk again, this time into the living room. Jack laid him down on the couch and then found an afghan over another chair. Although it was not particularly cold he covered Jeff with it. Jeff clutched the edge of the afghan and gave it a hard look. Jack thought for a second he had made an error but then Jeff pulled the edge of the afghan to his cheek and shut his eyes. Jack sat in the room but Jeff’s hand relaxed and he was snoring within a few minutes.
Jack went back into the kitchen. Now he made himself the blackest tea available with two bags. When he had his caffeine fix in front of him, he went back to his apartment. He dressed and found his cell phone and took it back to Jeff’s. Then he sat at Jeff’s kitchen table punching a list into his computer of things that needed to get done.
He waited until the more civilized hour of 7:30am and then he took care of his own business and called Olivia Grant.
“Olivia, this is Jack. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it in today.”
“Oh. Are you alright Jack?”
“Yes. Well…one of the neighbors in my complex has died. I am helping her husband with the arrangements.”
“Oh, Jack I’m sorry. Of course I’ll have Linda pick up your class. Take all the time you need. Is there anything we can do?”
“Thank you…no. I’ll let you know.”
He hung up and immediately called Tilton Brown the grange captain. Technically the responsibility fell to him although Jack had every intention of continuing what he had started. After all Jeff was his neighbor, a member of his grange. Jeff was one of his own.
“Tilton, this is Jack.”
“Yes Jack, what can I do for you?”
“I’m afraid Chloe passed away last night.”
There was a pause. Then, “I’m so sorry. Who is with Jeff? Is he alright?”
“I’m at his place now. I’ve been here most of the night. He finally fell asleep on the couch.”
“I’ll be there is about an hour Jack. Are you going to be alright until then.”
“Oh yeah…sure. I’ll be fine until you get here.”
The Concepts Behind the Fiction:
1. A blip in Human History
So what would you do if your neighbor died and you were the first to discover her mourning spouse? Would you call the authorities? Someone impersonal whose job it is to deal with death? Would you call family members? Leave it up to your neighbor? Would you have even gone to your neighbor’s apartment if you heard him weeping or would that have seemed too intrusive?
Does Jack seem intrusive to you? Do his actions seem odd, unlikely? For most of man’s 100,000 year history, the people who cared for the dead and comforted their loved ones were the people who lived in close proximity to the dead person. Only in the last 50 years has death become remote to most of us. It is only now that we have an impersonal culture that this is suddenly not the case. It may not be Jack’s actions that are unnatural but our own.
2. Neighbors in America
My husband Tivoed a Dateline episode the other night about a man who shot his neighbors in cold blood over a landscaping dispute. Landscaping! He claimed self defense and the jury did not buy it. He is now in prison. I think he should have gone with insanity.
What would it take for us to view our neighbors in a different light? To see them as a lifeline and not a hindrance? To have a “live and let live” attitude because your life might actually depend on it?
I think it would take a lot. It would take a crisis but it would also take a re-education of the way the Americans think. As our financial crisis deepens I hear from people that they need to get property that is isolated and get a gun in case things do spiral down hill. I never hear “Lets start a neighborhood garden so we can collaborate on having enough to eat.” Or “Lets buy staples in bulk for the neighborhood so we can get a cheap price and everyone can eat in an emergency.” Yet which is the wiser course in financial collapse. Cuba and Argentina, who both faced a collapse, indicate the latter. There is a limited amount that you can do on your own or with only your family for help. Humans have survived for thousands of years because we have the ability to cooperate.
But what would it take for you to assume responsibility for your neighbor? To care for them when they are sick or injured? To comfort them in loss? In days gone by, and not that long ago, that was the norm. It would take a complete rewrite of our current culture. It would take nixing the idea that we were in competition with each other. Competition to show how affluent we are. Competition for the best jobs, the most resources. It would take an abandoning of our hierarchical mind set. It would take a sense that without your neighbor, your world would be less, not more.
3. Bowling for Columbine
In the movie Bowling for Columbine Michael Moore theorizes that our violent habits in the US come from a deep seated fear of others. He puts forth an interesting argument which is well worth considering even if the points made in the movie are sometimes weak.
In one scene, he compares the US with Canada. Canada has far fewer murders per capita than the US. He compares what we hear on our news shows to what the Canadian news covers and how a heightened sense of fear is much more prevalent in the US newscasts. He also goes to a Canadian city to show that people are so unafraid that they do not lock their doors. He takes his film crew down a Canadian street and just starts opening doors at random while the film crew captures the somewhat surprised looks on Canadian’s faces at such an intrusion.
It has been years since my husband and I have locked our door routinely. We even leave it open when we go into town and the house is empty. A few months ago I could not even find the door key because it has been used so infrequently. We have now lived in 3 residences that we did not feel compelled to lock unless we actually left on vacation. What would a society of anti-door lockers be like?
It is not as though we get along with all of our neighbors, either. My husband and the neighbor on the right have an almost comically hostile relationship. The origin of the dispute? Landscaping.