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The Angel Made Me Do It

by Jim Andris

It was a spectacular November day, but I didn't feel much like enjoying it. "Damn it!" I thought, as I returned from getting the shell attached to our new Nissan GE Truck, "I'll bet he hasn't even got out into the yard yet."

I was right. Stephen appeared at the kitchen door in his tee shirt, yawning
and scratching. The deal had been that I just had to help by getting the shell for him, because he just had somuch to do. So I had agreed. But what I really wanted to do was to go to the Gardens this balmy Sunday afternoon, before all the multi- colored leaves blew away into the gloom of impending winter.

''Well, did you like the shell?"

Ignoring his question, I tried not to let my irritation show. "So, have you been out in the yard yet?" ·

"No. I'm just getting ready to go out now."

''Well, Jesus Christ!" I just couldn't hold it back.

''What do you mean, Jesus Christ? Stephen mumbled.

As if he didn't know. I stormed around the house for a couple of minutes,
getting organized and just a knee jerk away from cabinet door slamming.

''Well I'm going to the Gardens. I'll see you in a couple of hours." A little guilt
played at my heart, because it's not really my nature to be vindictive. But this time, revenge won out. He said he had to work, and by God he was going to. That was that.

I talked to him briefly about the truck and then hopped into my new Altima GXE. I stormed down Kingshighway, still plenty pissed.

As the adrenaline began to wear off, I checked out the washes of blue in the cloudy sky and the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. I turned into the Gardens parking lot and walked straight through the Ridgway Center out into Spoehrer Plaza. There was still a lot of color, but most of the leaves had fallen.

A real battle was going on inside me between the desire to stay mad and the desire to enjoy all this beauty. Negative dialog sprang up again and again in my mind. Each time I pushed it away and focused on some aspect of Nature that I was coming upon.

"I don't believe it! There are still irises out. In November," I said to myself. These must be some of those "rebloomers" that Stephen has been talking about. There were two or three egg yolk yellow blooms with white beards and pale yellow falls. Oh, and a vivid purple indigo self. And here was a gorgeous one with peach sherbet standards and brownish-green falls.

The last vestige of my anger disappeared. And with that returned the love that I always naturally feel for Stephen. I thought of how he loved irises, and the hundreds of apricot and pale purple ones that he had planted at our own condo complex.

I threw myself into the garden path with determination. "This is great. How many places in the world could you be out seeing irises in the middle of November?" Then I thought, "California, Hawaii, Georgia..."

I took the full walk around the Gardens, checking out Shaw's Tomb, that pink marble and stained glass Victorian monument to the founder resting in a bed of myrtle and snow drops in a glade of oak trees, the new addition to the English Woodland Gardens, with its rock-lined, winding stream, and the expansive Japanese Gardens.

Unfortunately, the Japanese chrysanthemums were way past their prime, but the wonderful display of red, orange and yellow leaves floating in the water around the lazily swimming ornamental carp at the zig-zag bridge more than made up for that.

"It's so peaceful here. Thanks, Henry!"

It started to cool a bit, but the breeze was refreshing. I turned down the path to the Lehman Rose Garden. Here was a full pink rose bud just opening up. What an intoxicating perfume.

"Aren't they just beautiful?"

I looked around to discover an old woman, elegantly dressed. She was using one of those aluminum walkers with four little rubber-capped feet. She had stopped in the middle of carefully negotiating the three wide stairs down to the lower level of the rose garden.

''Why, yes, they are," I replied. "Did you see the single red ones up there? I think they're a type of tree rose.

"No, I didn't. I'll have to see them next time. I come here twice a week. Such a lovely place, but it's time to go home now."

I had myself decided to go home, but I was drawn to this sweet old soul. I walked on over to her.

"I go everywhere I want," she said. "Oh, I broke my hip three years ago, and now I have to be awfully careful. But I find that if I just stop and rest at every bench, I can do it!" She pronounced the "do it" with a determination that I haven't often seen in someone in this period of life.

We strolled along together, and she was quite full of conversation. "I'm Patricia," she announced, "but you can call me Trixie. Everybody does. Trixie Elmer. That's a good Swiss name. I've been to Europe, you know. Seven times. I even found the mountain where my grandmother and grandfather lived. They grew up on opposite sides of the mountain, but they found each other!"

"I'm Jim, Trixie. Jim Andris."

I studied Trixie's face carefully. She had vivid blue eyes, and to my amazement, she seemed to see everything just fine without eyeglasses. Her hair was a blond orange, and her cheeks, naturally pink, bore more than their share of red rouge.

We had really hit it off. We looked at the trees and I shared a bit about myself with her- I was a University professor, a musician that composed rags and popular songs.

"I'm a bit of a songwriter and poet myself," she countered. And I finger paint. I even sold a couple of my finger paintings to Hallmark for Christmas cards. And I was a teacher, and after that, a social worker. Of sorts. I worked for the Salvation Army.

'Tm 85 years old. Do you think that I look that old?"

"No, Trixie, you're very young-looking for that age."

Her slow, steady gate faltered. "Oh, dear. I may have overdone it. I should
have stopped and rested at that last bench we saw. I was trying to catch my bus at Grand and Shaw. It's the hardest one of all to catch. You know I have to take three busses to get here and three more to get back to my house in South St. Louis."

"Well, take your time," I said. There was a bench not 50 yards up the path. "Do you think you can make it to that bench?"

"I think so."

Just as we began to walk again, she lost her balance. She reached out and
grabbed my right arm. The near-fall had shaken her up.

"Oh dear! That was a bad twist to my knee. That's just how I fell and broke
my hip before. I got too tired. You know, now I have to watch every step I take."

After a couple of minutes she said, "Now I'm going to be all right. I just need
to rest a few minutes."

I remained calm and patient.

After a couple of more minutes, she said, "You know I have angels watching
over me. I often ask them for help, and they take care of me."

"I'll bet you do."

"No." She was firm. "I really have angels watching over me.

''Well, I believe you," I said, thinking that I would do well twenty years down
the road to have the determination and stamina of this remarkable woman, and hoping a little bit that there were angels that watched over people.

She continued to cling to my arm. I helped her slowly along the path until we got to the bench. She nearly collapsed onto it. A slightly amused older gentleman sat on the opposite corner of the bench, but said nothing.

Trixie still seemed a bit short of breath. "I must have cracked a rib, or maybe I have some angina."

I looked at her carefully and wondered if she was going to be ill. But gradually, the flash returned to those steely blue eyes, and she smiled at me. I offered to take her home, but she insisted that she only needed a ride to her first bus. We slowly made the last part of the path and even more slowly negotiated the few steps up to the Ridgway Center.

"I'll have to take the elevator down, you know."

As we were heading toward the elevator, she gave me a quizzical look. "I've been going on and on about myself, and I've scarcely given you a chance to speak."

"It's fine, Trixie. I've been enjoying our walk."

"But tell me more about yourself. Do you have a family? Are you married?" That inevitable question that I always hate.

''Well, sort of."

Trixie stopped dead in her tracks and looked steadily at me.

''What does that mean?" she demanded.

"I have a significant other." I reluctantly owned.

"And what does that mean?"

"My significant other's name is Stephen."

We continued on and got on the elevator.

"Are you gays?" she asked, as the elevator doors closed. She pronounced the
word "gays" with determination.

''Yes, we're gay."

She pondered this information. The doors were opening, with a husband,
wife and two small children waiting to enter at the ground floor. "I've had lots of gay friends. They make fine friends." Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the woman getting on the elevator look at us strangely.

Now Trixie is eyeing at me with a knowing look. ''You just have to see the fall flower show. It's modeled after the works of Mondrian, and it's wonderful."

"But we'll miss your bus for sure if I do."

"No, you have to. It won't be here next week. Go on, look, and I'll wait. Just take a look in the room."

So I did. She was quite right. This was no show to miss. Bright yellow chrysanthemums dominated the display, laid out in rectangles within rectangles, just like a Mondrian painting. Wonderful fountains, one, a curtain of rain in a black doorway, were integrated with the flowers.

I returned to her side after just a few minutes.

She leaned over to me and in a half-whisper, said, "I had a girl friend once. But she married some guy and moved to New York." She thought a bit more. "I think he's dead now." "But I get along just fine by myself."

"I can't believe she said that," I thought. Then I said, "You wait here and I'll go get the car." And I did.

I pulled the car up to the curb where Trixie was waiting and pushed the right door open. She eased herself into the seat and then wrestled her walker in and leaned it against her knee. She closed the door.

"You know, I'd like for you to meet the man across the street. He's single and a very nice man. He comes to visit and we have a good time."

''Well, perhaps Stephen and I can have the two of you over for dinner sometime. Or maybe that wouldn't be a good idea since we live on the third floor and there's no elevator."

"That would be no problem at all! I can negotiate the steps just fine. I just have to stop and rest a bit."

"Let's do that during the holidays, then."

We had about ten blocks down Shaw to drive and the trees were gorgeous. There were lots of yellow maple leaves dancing softly to the ground. How odd. I suddenly felt the closeness of the Christmas season.

"Are you in the phone book?" she asked.

"Yes. It's A-N-D-R-I-S. James F."

As we neared Grand, she said, ''Well, Jim, you were my angel today."

"I was glad to help and it's been nice meeting you,"

I turned right onto Grand and pulled up to the curb. We said good-bye and
Trixie got out. As I pulled away from the curb, I could see her disappeared behind her bus just as it was pulling up.

When I got home, I was feeling much better than when I left. Stephen was out working in the yard, down on his hands and knees as usual digging in the dirt.

He loves to garden, but lately, hasn't had nearly enough time to do all the things that need to be done—dig up iris, plant spring bulbs, move some rose bushes, work on the herb garden.

I got to thinking about how our relationship has been changing since we entered counseling about a year ago. We've been together nearly ten years, but we've never learned to handle our passionate disagreements. At first the counseling went smooth, but later, I had been getting a lot of anger out. Mainly I had been angry about money or the lack of it. Stephen's main concern all along has been that I don't know how to negotiate. It's been difficult.

Today for some reason, I found myself remembering a strained conversation we had just a couple of days before. It was in the morning and we were discussing nutritional issues. We argue a lot about that because Stephen is into juicing and nutritional supplements much more than I am. What was actually said isn't important; we've been over the same ground fifty times. Either one of us can start it, and then the inevitable cascade of tiled points and counterpoints follows.

But on this particular day, at the end of the end of our "discussion," I heard Stephen—this man to whom I have pledged my lifetime support before God in the Episcopal Church—protest in exasperation, "I can never say anything."

I had heard this days ago, but here it was ringing in my inner ear. My heart hurt, and somehow, the desperation of this remark finally sank in.

I wanted to go up to him and just say that I was sorry, but it wouldn't have made any sense. He had probably forgotten that particular remark. And also, I know how I can be penitent one time and a jerk the next day. The old ways take over, and I forget my insight.

So instead, standing there with tears in my eyes and looking at that bent, yellow-glove-in-the-soil, dirty-kneed, smiling man that I love, I just made a silent promise to myself to let him be freer with speaking his beliefs.

Later that evening, I was sitting quietly on the couch reading when the phone rang. It was Trixie.

"I wanted to see if I could get you at home. Thank you for the help today."

"Well, thank you for an enjoyable afternoon," I countered.

"You know, that was not accident that we met. There are no accidents. My
angels were watching over me."

"Probably not," I tentatively replied. "You sound very spiritual to me."

"I've studied these things all my life," she returned. "I was in the
theosophical society here in St. Louis. I've studied Yogananda's teachings."

I was surprised. "Paramahansa Yogananda is my guru! I've meditated in the
Self Realization Fellowship for many years. I've even been to the Heritage at Encinitas and the Mother Center."

"Have you seen the Lake Shrine, with the beautiful swans?"

That was the meaning, of course, of "paramahansa"—beautiful swan. "Yes, I have been there." Suddenly, I realized that I was talking to a kindred spirit.

"And you know that I formed the first UFO club in St. Louis in 1957?"

"No kidding! A friend of mine, Jan, and Stephen and I went recently to a UFO convention hosted here in St. Louis. I've been following this phenomenon for years."

And on and on the conversation went, a spiral of self-disclosure and meeting of the minds that left us both a bit worn out after a while.

"I have to go now. Like I said, we were meant to meet today."

"Good-bye, Trixie, I hope to see you soon.

"Bye."

That was two weeks ago and I haven't heard from Trixie since. I haven't
called her either, although I've thought of her a lot. It's been crazy, with two reports to write at work and finishing up my classes for the semester.

But I have changed. I kept that promise to myself—you know, the one about giving Stephen more room to say what he thinks. Many times in the last two weeks I have just said nothing, or "You think so?" in response to his nutritional pronouncements.

Three nights ago I woke him up in the middle of the night and made love to him. I told him that I loved him very much. I've been telling him that a lot lately.

And Stephen has been smiling a lot. Not just little·grins, but a big, wide-mouthed grins that show his perfect, even, white teeth. He's even handsomer when he smiles like that.

Driving home from work the other day I found myself recalling my afternoon with Trixie, and how I have been much better with Stephen. And I wondered to myself if one of Trixie's angels hadn't followed me home from the Gardens. It sure feels like it.