Psychic Warriors

 

“What are you reading?” I ask Dave, who’s moved a ratty old porch chair out onto the sidewalk to take in the sun. It’s been raining, and I mean RAINING, for days. A ‘bomb cyclone.’ Doesn’t that sound violent and dangerous? And, I think it was for some. Flooding. Power outages. Car accidents. But for us here in Richmond, we just got the torrential rain and wind. Which we need. I love the rain. Though it was nice to get a break today.

            Dave looks up from his book, his tired eyes blinking behind wired rimmed glasses. A stale cup of coffee with ‘meow’ written all over it and little brown, orange, and yellow cats sits on the sidewalk next to him. It looks like it’s been there for days with a chalky white film covering the top.

            “Oh, hello!” he responds, smiling under his dirty mustard colored wool cap. “I’m reading Psychic Warriors.” Without my prompting he launches into a lengthy description of the plot. “It’s about a group of Jordian warriors who are in the Valley of the Ghouls fighting the….” I space out for a moment. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I got stuck on Valley of the Ghouls. What would this look like? Is it a vast depression in the mountains of Jordan (Does Jordan even have mountains? ) where various spectral apparitions float about, causing much terror and trauma for anyone who ventures into their domain?”

Folger Shakespeare Library

            “….and what happens is that these Psychic Warriors can communicate with the angels and with God so that order can be brought into the Kingdom.”

            Dave pauses for a moment, shaking his head in wonder. I know that he believes in angels and God. He’s read me passages from the Bible about healing when I had first met him this last summer after breaking my wrist.

            Now he takes a look at me, squinting. “How’s the wrist?”

            “Oh, it’s much better.” I flex my fingers and wriggle my hand to show him. He smiles up at me from his seat.

            “What are you reading?” he asks. I tell him, briefly, about Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. “Eleanor is a funny, sympathetic and quirky character. I’m really enjoying her voice. In fact, I’m also listening to her on the audio books with the Libby app.”

            “Oh, isn’t that nice,” Dave comments. “You get to enjoy it in two ways.”

            “Yes.” And I marvel at finding another person who gets the value of reading. Who actually reads books! And while maybe his choice of reading material isn’t mine, it’s still reading. And thinking! I glance down at the book he’s holding in his lap. Its paper cover is tattered. The pages well-worn with tabs and fold downs at the corners. He isn’t just reading it; he’s studying the Psychic Warriors.

            And with a title like that, it must demand a lot of studying, right?

            He is staring into space for a moment, before launching into a long indecipherable story about his niece, Star, a firefighter in Washington State and how she needs equipment dropped out of a plane down in San Bernadino to fight the wildfires down there. I had commented on the rain and how wonderful it was to have the all the water. He’d agreed. “It’ll help to put out all these fires that my niece has been fighting.”

            “It’s great that she’d doing that. That there are young people who are doing that kind of valiant work.”

            He nods. “Yes it is….”

            I start to move away, eager to continue my walk before the sun gets too high. “Well, it was nice seeing you,” I say.

            “Yes, you too.”

            “Say hi to CiCi and the pets. The cat and …” I pause for a moment, thinking how I hadn’t seen the limping cancer-stricken dog for months. “…is the dog….?”

            “No,” Dave sighs softly. “Dorothy…. she passed let’s see…today is Saturday…so, yeah, it’s been about 10 days. Died in her sleep somewhere between 2 and 6 am we think.”

            “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I offer, knowing how heartbreaking it is to lose a beloved pet.

“I would imagine that CiCi misses her terribly.” I would always see the two of them, the dog limping painfully, CiCi leading her gently, on their short walks up and down 32^nd Street.

            “Yes, she does. She does….” He paused again. “I’ll tell CiCi that you said hello. That you give your condolences. She’ll like that.”

            “Yes, please do….”

            I take a few steps.

            “Enjoy the rest of your walk,” he says.

            “Thanks, I will.”

            I wave goodbye as he opens his book, head bent down, deeply engrossed. In the Valley of the Ghouls? Or the communication of the angels? Or remembering Dorothy?

            A wall of bright white puffy clouds floats in the sky ahead of me, a lone palm tree swaying in the slight breeze. I breathe in deeply as a lone crow caws at me from atop a telephone pole.