Just Jim

We are all extraordinary.

I.
I met him when I was seventeen and he was nineteen. I was a Junior in high school, he was a freshman in college. It sounds cliché because it is. So much of our lives together was ordinary. So much of almost everyone’s life is ordinary. It seems dull and unfulfilling when you have it, and painfully wonderful and perfect if you lose it. That’s where I’m at now.
I was talked into going to a party by some girlfriends; a college party, with college boys. And beer of course. I was reluctant. I had lived a sheltered life, and I was okay with that. I was too innocent a girl for all the casual drinking and fooling around that went on at these parties, and I knew it. But, like most adolescents, the approval of my friends outweighed my fear of life experiences I was not yet ready for. So I acquiesced.
The party was at a fraternity house; again, cliché right? There were plenty of college boys, but a disproportional number of college girls. When we arrived, my two girlfriends greeted a few of the boys they knew from God-knows-where, and introduced me in kind. One in particular, a good looking, muscular guy, seemed to take a particular liking to me. He had a five o’clock shadow like my father’s, but with a twinkle in his eye like a boy searching for something to blow up with the big firecracker he just found. During the initial polite chit-chat, a plastic cup full of beer materialized seemingly from nowhere and was offered to me by Man-Boy.
I told myself that if I sip on it just to be polite, a teenager’s way of looking at trying to fit in, it should last the rest of the evening. Like most people who drink beer for the first time, I found the foamy liquid to be absolutely disgusting, and it only got worse as the drink warmed in my hands. I also found that as I drank it, my nerves slowly calmed and I felt I was acting more natural, more like myself with every sip. There is a fine line, however, between taking the edge off and going over the edge, especially for a tiny little unseasoned drinker like I was. As my sips turned to gulps, and my one beer turned into two, then three, I had quickly consumed more than I should have.
I probably didn’t have much more than that, but calling it too much would be an understatement. The next morning, as I tried to recall the evening before, I could only remember little snippets of events, nothing in its entirety. From what I could remember, everyone seemed to find my laughing at nothing and my slurry, drunken comments to be totally obnoxious; everyone except Man-Boy, of course. He was my new best friend, with his arm draped over one shoulder and under the other, traipsing me around the party, making sure I had plenty to drink. Quite the host, really.
We were sitting on the couch, and I must have passed out. The next thing I remember was waking up in a bed upstairs, fully clothed, with a throbbing head and a boiling stomach. I came downstairs, and a totally different boy, not a Man-Boy, but a regular nineteen-year-old freshman college kid, was sitting at the table playing solitaire, a number of liquor bottles and empty red cups shoved to one side to provide a proper playing surface.
“Good morning,” he said, as I entered the kitchen.
“Uh… Good morning” I said to this complete stranger.
“My name’s Jim,” he said, offering his hand.
“Carol,” I said, giving his hand a brief shake. I was still disoriented and wondering where my friends were.
“I am heading home. You need a ride?”
“Um, well… I don’t know” I said, looking around at the people sleeping in various contorted positions on the ratty furniture in the living room. None of them were the two friends I came with.
My eyes obviously betrayed my thoughts, because he said “Your friends are in a different room upstairs, next to the one you woke up in. They were up pretty late last night, but you can try to wake them up and catch a ride if you want.”
I tried to wake my friends, but they barely stirred. I knew I was already in deep you-know-what with my parents. I called them after my attempts to wake my friends proved fruitless. After the initial “Are you alright?” and “Where are you?” questions, my dad just said “Get home. Now.”
Jim was back playing solitaire at the table when I hung up the phone. I told him it looked like I would need a ride after all, but I lived about an hour away.
“That’s cool,” he said, grabbing a jacket off the back of one of the kitchen chairs, “you ready?”
I grabbed my coat and we left. The ride home was spent in awkward silence, sporadically broken by even more awkward small talk. It was about the most uncomfortable hour of my life, when you figure I was trying to not be rude to this unquestionably kind guy, while still trying to figure out what I was going to tell my parents.
“Worried about what you are going to tell them, huh?” he said at one point; we were only a handful of miles from my house, and my tension must have been growing. It was not the first time and not the last he would seem to read my mind. He did that with everyone. He had a knack for it. It’s not that he was psychic or anything. He was just incredibly adept at paying attention to every detail in a given situation, and knowing more about what was going on than anyone else.
He always told me the ending of a movie before it was even half way through, not because he had already seen it, he just knew. I hated when he did that.
“Honesty: that’s your only option, I’d say.”
“Oh,” I said with a snort, “getting drunk and waking up in a strange bed at a frat house will only get me killed a little bit.”
“Yeah, your folks won’t kill you. They’ll be angry, ashamed, and disappointed, but you’ll live and so will they.”
“That sounds even better. A fate worse than death.” I say, and he just turns to me and gives me a half grin; the same look he would give me a million times over the years. A look that could mean anything from “Good one” to “Ahhh, you silly woman”. Judging from what I have observed in those of the male species, including my father, it’s a look all men give.
We rode in silence the rest of the way. When we pulled into the driveway, my dad came immediately out the front door and stood at the bumper of the car, arms folded across his chest, staring Jim down through the windshield. Jim quickly turned to me and held his hand up.
“It’s been a pleasure, Carol. Please, give me a call sometime,” he said, as he slipped something like a napkin into my hand.
Without looking at it, I slid it into my jacket pocket, and took a deep breath. I opened the passenger door, and to my surprise, Jim opened his door as well. I kept moving, but I was thinking What in the world is he doing?
“Jim Habersham, Mr.…” he trailed off, extending his hand.
“Mr. Connolly,” said my father, giving Jim what looked like a firm but brief handshake. I stopped next to them, but my father nodded toward the house, indicating where I needed to be at that moment. Before I closed the front door behind me, I heard Jim begin to speak to my dad in a hushed whisper.
I looked out the front window, hardly noticing my mom sitting on the couch with her own arms folded across her chest. “Where have you been?” she began, but I quickly assured her that I would tell her the whole story when my father came back in.
She got a puzzled look on her face and came to the window to see what was going on outside. Jim was speaking with little hand gestures, and my dad was listening intently as he stared at the ground, nodding his head every so often. Then, a very unexpected thing happened: my father looked up, gave Jim another handshake, a little longer this time, and a smile actually crossed his face for just a fraction of a second. The whole thing was over when Jim gave him a little wave as he got back in his car and backed out of the driveway. My father watched him leave, and slowly walked toward the front door, arms crossed and brow furrowed.
He came into the house, and registered no surprise whatsoever when he realized we’d been watching out the window the whole time. “Go to your room, Carol. I need to talk to your mother.”
I went without a word, and laid down on my bed, wondering how bad they were going to lose it when I was called back into the living room. As I said, I had lived a sheltered life. I was an only child, and my mom, dad, and I had always been a tight-knit little trio; eating dinner at the table every night, and going to Church every single Sunday as far back as I could remember. This was going to get very, very ugly and I was so ashamed of myself. I knew of nothing they could do that could compare with how I felt at that moment.
Apparently, they agreed with me. When I was summoned from my room, they said very little.
“Jim told me what happened,” my father said flatly. So, he didn’t leave me any option but honesty, huh? I thought. I just said “Oh,” as I looked down at the floor.
“We know you are going to go out and try new things,” my mom said, “even things you shouldn’t be anywhere near at your age. But, do you realize what could have happened to you? What that boy would have done if Jim hadn’t been there?”
I was so naïve, I hadn’t even thought about what happened to the Man-Boy, or what his intentions were. A vague notion of how Jim knew what bed I was in, where my friends were, why he was sitting at the table playing cards when I awoke, began to dawn on me.
“Do you know what Jim did for you, honey?” my father asked gently.
I shook my head, though I had an idea.
“Well, he didn’t say much, but what I gather from what Jim told me, this other boy got you drunk and was going to do something awful, but Jim kept him from it. I am sure your friends will give you the details on Monday,” he put quotation marks around the word friends with his tone, “he said they saw the whole thing.”
He looked at me and his gaze told me everything I needed to know about my “friends”. They had looked the other way when a burly football-player-type was going to… rape me. Yeah, that’s definitely the word, rape me… or worse. I looked back at him, and thought he’s right.
Both of my parents must have seen what my look meant, because they both nodded their heads as if they could tell that I got it.

II.
I was grounded for a month. No telephone, no going out except for school and church, no communication with the outside world whatsoever. A light penance I thought. A few days into the following week, I was slipping my coat on to go to school, when I felt a napkin or tissue or something of the sort in my pocket. I went to throw it away, when I noticed what it was. It was a napkin, one of the napkins from the party. I know this because it was imprinted with the Greek letters signifying the fraternity that had hosted the little shindig.
Now I really wanted to throw it away, but then I remembered that Jim had slipped something like this into my hand just before I exited his car. I was so nervous at the time, so afraid to face my parents, that I had never given it another thought until just at that instant. Not even when I heard a few days prior from my “friends” how Jim had kept me from having my life irrevocably changed forever.
It turns out that I had passed out on the couch, with Man-Boy’s arm around my shoulders. Jim had apparently been quietly observing us, because when Man-Boy started kissing me and getting himself revved up for what he had in mind for me, Jim quickly formed an alliance with some of the other guys at the party.
He knew he could not take the gorilla on by himself, but would have had it been necessary, he later told me. What little Jim said about the incident, he only did so with much goading from me. My modest knight in shining armor.
Anyway, he and the other fraternity brothers confronted Man-Boy, and apparently convinced him of what they would do if he didn’t give up on having his way with me. He reluctantly gave in, which must have been tough on the young buck, coming so close to what he thought was a sure thing. My stomach still does a barrel roll when I think about how right he almost was.
As you probably have guessed by now, the napkin Jim gave me had his number on the back. Once I served out my punishment, I gave him a call, because I had at that point pretty much fully realized what he had done for me. I really wanted to say thank you, simply because I meant it. Who wouldn’t?
It began quite slowly, our courtship. At the end of our brief telephone conversation, the one where I called just to thank him, he said he had enjoyed talking with me, and he hoped I would call him again sometime. Strange, when you think about it. I had barely said more than “Thank you”. But he said he had enjoyed it, and I am sure he had. That’s how he was; direct, honest, and to the point. I think that’s why he was so good at talking to people, really; so good at making them understand or agree with him. I am sure that’s how he conveyed the situation to my father so that my dad would understand that I didn’t make a habit of going to parties and getting drunk, and I hadn’t planned on it the previous evening. How I was nearly victimized by an older, more savvy man. No doubt, that’s how he convinced his fraternity brothers to gang up on the Man-Boy with him, and how he in turn had convinced the Man-Boy that if he persisted, it would not turn out good for him. I saw him do likewise many times since. He even made a living at it; not long after we were married, he opened a car dealership with money he had been saving since God knows how long, and did pretty well. As funny as it sounds, as a used car dealer, he just capitalized on one of his strengths: persuasion through honesty.
So, our phone calls became more frequent, and eventually we went out. We went out again a few weeks later. After a while, we were seeing each other every weekend. My parents, of course, approved. They were no more capable of resisting his honest, direct demeanor than anyone else. Their first impression of him didn’t hurt either, I suppose. Eventually, our subtle courtship became a subtle engagement, and then a subtle marriage. I am not saying all this so I can dramatically reveal some dark, sinister side of Jim that no one knew about; your off the hook there. I am only saying this so you will understand that Jim, in most ways, was not an extraordinary man; not incredibly bright, or handsome, or strong, or anything else. He was pretty much average by all accounts. He was just Jim.

III.
That’s what I would say on the rare occasions when someone would notice his two main abilities: expert communication, and, as I mentioned previously, keen insight; his ability to always know what was going to happen before it did. Nothing ever surprised him. When someone would comment on these two traits, I would say, “That’s just Jim,” or “That’s just how Jim is.” It’s how he knew what the Man-Boy was up to; it’s how he knew what the best approach would be for setting things straight with my parents.
He was, like almost all of us, extraordinary in completely ordinary ways. He never ran into a burning building to save someone, never apprehended a notorious criminal. He did have an irredeemable flaw though. He smoked. I never saw him with a cigarette, and I don’t think that he smoked more than a few cigarettes a day. He would come in and I would smell it on him. Not like he had just had one, but like he had had one earlier in the day. The first time I smelled it on him, I looked up at him and asked, “Have you been smoking?” in a genuinely stunned voice. He of course looked me in the eye and said, “Yep.” That’s when I learned that, when it came to smoking at least, honesty meant telling the truth when asked, and not necessarily full disclosure. That’s the way of an addict.
Sadly, it became a routine. I would smell it on him, and ask if he had been smoking. He would say “Yep”. I told him it was going to kill him if he didn’t stop, and he would agree. I didn’t really believe it though, smoking as little as he did. I was wrong.
It seems so quick, the way it happened. We had been married fifteen years, a short time with someone you love deeply. He had long gone thin on top and thick around the middle, just like most men in their late thirties do. I had long been rejecting his advances, and also had put on a few extra pounds; things that often happen to women in middle age. He was always frisky, ready to go at a moment’s notice. I told him I just didn’t have any sex drive. I guess it was true, I mean, I wasn’t attracted to him anymore, but I wasn’t attracted to anyone else, either. But I did always love him. I still do, very much.
He began to shed a few pounds, and was a bit less rambunctious than he had always been previously. By the time we figured out that his weight-loss and fatigue were serious, it was too late. His lungs each contained a massive tumor; one the size of a plumb, the other the size of a lemon. The doctors said all they could do was put him on the transplant list, but they didn’t hold out much hope in him getting one before the cancer metastasized. They were right. He died just thirty-nine days after his diagnosis. It was brutal, like taking blow after blow in the first round, and getting knocked out before the bell rings. I guess it’s better than going twelve rounds and losing anyway.

IV.
I will end this by telling you one more story about my husband, Jim Habersham. I know of one other time when he used his extraordinarily ordinary abilities to save someone, besides the time he saved me from years of therapy and counseling, I mean. Who knows, he may have done it on a daily basis. I only know of this particular instance.
He used to volunteer as a little league umpire. Another characteristic of Jim’s typical life, and another perfect application of his abilities. He was, of course, quite good at it. He never got any awards or trophies or anything, but his calls were always fair, and if one of the parents argued with him, he would pull him or her to the side for a private chat. Ultimately, his calls would stand without further disagreement.
One day, I ran into one of the kids he used to ump for at the grocery store. I had no idea who he was. As far as I knew, I had never seen him before. But, I must have, because he recognized me. As I was pushing my cart into the parking lot, I heard a teenage voice croak out “Mrs. Habersham! Mrs. Habersham!” I turned and a tall, lanky kid about fifteen or sixteen years old was running toward me.
“Mrs. Habersham, I am sure you don’t recognize me,” he said, “but my name is Stuart and your husband used to umpire my little league games.” He said it real fast, I suppose so I would immediately know why he would flag me down. I thought Here it goes; another stranger who barely knew Jim telling me they are sorry for my loss.
“I barely knew your husband, Mrs. Habersham, but I need to tell you something he did for me when I was twelve that changed my life.”
Now I was intrigued. The kid was smart enough to admit that he barely knew my husband, something no one else seemed willing to do. I found that to be an insultingly inappropriate way to memorialize a man who was always so directly honest with everyone. And he had said that Jim had changed his life. Yeah, you could say I suddenly needed to hear what this kid had to say.
“Mr. Habersham sometimes gave me and some of the other boys a ride home,” he began. I knew this was true; a lot of the kids’ parents couldn’t be there to watch the boys’ games. Usually it was because they had to work, sometimes it was for other reasons. Jim did not want problems or commitments the parents had to keep the kids from playing ball, so he was known for taking the kids to and from the ball park, even when he himself did not have a game to umpire.
“One day, he gave me a ride home a little later than usual. It was an evening game, and it had gone into extra innings. We lost.” he said with that half grin all men seem to be born with. In this case, I think it was of a self-deprecating nature.
“When we pulled into my driveway, my ol’ man was standing there with his arms folded across his chest, glaring at me through the windshield.” The similarities between his story and my own already nearly took the breath out of me. I just nodded my head.
“My ol’ man was pretty tough on us back then. He wouldn’t hesitate to smack us around if he thought we needed it. But, he never did it in front of people, and as far as I know, no one ever noticed the bruises.” He wasn’t looking at me now. He was looking at something over my right shoulder, or towards something in that general direction.
“When I climbed out of the car, Mr. Habersham opened his door and stepped out, too.” Of course he did I thought.
“Home late, aren’t you?’ my ol’ man growled. ‘We went into extra innings’ I said. ‘Did you win?’ he asked ‘No sir,’ I says. ‘Get in the house,’ he said.” At this point the kid was looking me straight in the eyes again. I could almost guess what happened next.
“As I was running toward the door, I heard your husband say ‘Jim Habersham, Mr….’ before I shut the door,” It was funny, how I knew what this kid was going to say before he said it. Nothing he said so far had surprised me; I guess some of Jim’s insight had rubbed off over time. Of course, having seen the same scenario play out in my own driveway years before didn’t hurt either.
“I am telling you, Mrs. Habersham, that no one knew how my ol’ man treated us behind closed doors. I am sure of it. Except Mr. Habersham. I think…no, I’m sure he knew.” The kid continued to look me right in the eyes, searching for a spark of doubt. He didn’t find it.
“I watched them talking out the window. My dad looking down, listening and nodding his head. At one point he looked at your husband and dropped his arms. He looked like he had been surprised by something your husband said. Then he crossed his arms again, real quick, and went back to looking at the ground.” The kid was still staring directly at me, and I returned his gaze. I wanted to savor ever morsel of his story, wanted to taste ever drop of it. Because, while it was unbelievable in some ways, it was… just Jim. It had Jim all over it.
“After a few minutes, Mr. Habersham patted my dad on the shoulder, and nodded a few times, saying a few more words to him. My dad nodded right along with him, too.” I wonder if the kid noticed he was now talking about his dad, and not his ol’ man anymore.
“I know that a lot of people see your husband as ‘Just Mr. Habersham,’” he began.
“Just Jim,” I whispered.
“Pardon?” he said.
“Jim. You can call him Jim.” I said quickly.
“Okay,” he said hesitantly, “Jim. But Mr.…. I mean Jim, was so much more to me than that. My dad never laid another hand on me after that evening. Just like that. I don’t know what your husband said to him, standing out in our driveway that night, but whatever it was, he turned my dad around. Permanently and completely.” He was still searching me for doubt where there was none.
He pretty much ended the story the same way he began it. “Mr. Habersham changed my life.” I didn’t correct him. I hadn’t meant to before. I had Jim, he had Mr. Habersham. But, the same person changed both of our lives, forever.
He stood looking at me for a moment. And I at him. Then, I hugged him. I hugged him tight, and he hugged me tight. Neither of us said another word. We just stood in the parking lot of the grocery store, a woman approaching forty and a boy approaching manhood, finally giving the most important man in our lives the eulogy he deserved in an ordinary embrace.

V.
It’s been almost three years now since Jim died. We never had any kids. One of us, apparently, couldn’t. We never tried to find out which one. It didn’t matter. We couldn’t have children. That was how it was.
I am not a superstitious person. Most people aren’t, not very much, anyway. I believe in God though. I believe that God allowed me to see a situation unfold in that driveway those many years ago because he knew how ordinary Jim’s life would seem, and he wanted me to see and believe the extraordinary thing he had done for that boy. He may have even wanted me to believe Jim had done similar things that I never even knew about. Personally, I really think he did. No burning buildings, mind you, just using his gifts and talents to change lives, if not in more subtle ways. I think that is what we are all supposed to do.
I went through all of the stages of mourning for Jim, alone. It’s just like they say: first denial, then anger, then bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance. It’s how we all must do it I suppose. There is one stage that no one ever tells you about. It’s the one that sticks with you; the one stays in the back of your head so it can pop up every time you see something that reminds you of your loved one. It’s regret.
I regret not having more years with Jim. I regret not staying on him and making him quit that awful habit. I regret not telling him that I loved him more often, or making love to him as much as he would have liked. I regret not marrying him sooner. I regret taking him for granted, as we all do our most prized loved ones. It’s the great tragedy of humankind . We can never miss something until it has gone away.

Author's Note

All criticism is welcome. I couldn't seem to get the formatting right, though.