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A small gift for Jessie

John Farquhar Young

    In the garden of the old people’s; home where Jimmy has been resident for nearly three years, two magpies, until a moment earlier raucously rattling in the nearby sycamore tree, spot a rabbit in their territory. They swoop and, half hopping, half flying, chase the animal back and forward across the garden until it scampers beneath a shrub. The magpies fly back to the tree to resume their croaking exchange.

 
    Jimmy, formerly a highly successful gangster and scrap yard proprietor, but now beset by dark concerns about the sense of purposeless ‘old-age-drifting’ gradually enshrouding his life, observes the incident with interest. Conflict of any description prompts still vivid memories of a time when the use of violence was an ever-present option in his business, when people who didn’t know the rules were effectively ‘educated’, and when the word ‘smack’ referred to everything from a mild beating to severe injury, or on very rare occasions to an unmarked grave.
    Over the years Jimmy has come to regard himself as a student of violence - when it can be justified and when it should replace kindness. Gratuitous violence, violence for its own sake, violence as a source of pleasure, he deplores. Whenever possible he favors kindness as an instrument of influence, the quiet friendly word and the generous act.
    Jimmy returns his attention to the garden. The rabbit, he reasons, is physically more powerful than the magpies, more muscled up. A quick frontal charge that would do it, he thinks. Put paid to their arrogance, A quick smack! Show them their place.
    Now restless, he makes his way along the corridor to the main sitting room. A morning cup of coffee and a biscuit will soon be served. Eating, he frets, what else is there to do in this place? As he is about to enter the room he sees Brenda, a robustly constructed, normally jolly young care assistant crouching beside Jessie, a resident, trying to comfort her. Jimmy likes Jessie. Physically she is very fragile, but her mind is as sharp as a tack and her fine sense of mischief is amply advertised by the usual twinkie in her eye.
    “What’s wrong with Jessie?” he quietly asks Greta, another member of staff who, with folded arms, is dispassionately observing the scene from the corridor.
    “Her brother,” she murmurs. “He’s in hospital. Tried to kill himself. He’s been the target of hassle by a group of hooligans on the Bridgepoint estate. He got very depressed. The police of course are going through the motions...” She shrugs leaving her thoughts unexpressed then heads towards the kitchen.
    The police are often useless because they cannot deliver smacks, Jimmy thinks. Hooligans were educated on my patch and educated quickly.
    A thought, an idea, suddenly coalesces in his mind. Not my life anymore, he thinks. But the absence of purpose, the colorless, featureless, meandering, predictable daily routine of his existence is in that moment brought into sharp and painful focus. Friends and enemies familiar with the Jimmy-of-old would in that moment have recognized a sudden change in the old face, the glint in his eyes, the upward world-defying tilt of his square jaw, the lips now hard pressed into a line.
    Carried forward on the wave of revived resolve he finds himself standing in front of the public telephone in the corridor dialing a familiar number.
    His nephew Greg who now runs the scrap yard answers immediately.
     “Hi Greggie,” Jimmy growls. “How’s business?”
    Greggie says that the scrap trade is thriving, but he has a clear appreciation of his uncle’s wider interests.
    “Just thinking,” Jimmy begins after a moment or two of preliminary banter. “I was wondering if you had come across that tin box, I asked you about some time ago?”
    There is murmuring at the far end of the line.
    “That’s right, the one with the old photos.” ‘Tin box’ is code for money. The use of the word ‘old’ is a reference to illegal ventures. Greggie immediately grasps that his uncle is temporarily emerging from hibernation and wants to discuss a job which will involve the outlay of a sum of money drawn from a deep well of hidden, carefully laundered reserves.
    “I’ll have another look. Anyway, I’m due you a visit.”
    “Yeah, you are,” Jimmy laughs. “Feeling neglected. Be seeing you.” As he replaces the receiver, he suddenly feels alive, the old circuits energized. Meaning is flooding back into his life.
    A day later the care staff are pleased to note the arrival of Jimmy’s nephew, a tall powerfully built man in his forties. The men walk together in the spacious garden of the home, apparently happy in each other’s company.
    “Jimmy has really bucked up,” a care assistant remarks a couple of weeks later. “He’s also taking a greater interest in what’s going on in the world,” another observes. “Always first down in the morning to grab the newspaper.”
    She does not know the focus of Jimmy’s sudden interest in the news. Gang warfare is suspected in the Bridgepoint district. There are several reports of bad assaults, one or two needing extended hospital treatment. The victims are not cooperating with the police. There have been no arrests.
    A few smacks! Jimmy thinks as later in the week he makes his way towards a shaded garden seat, a newspaper tucked under an arm. His ‘people’, as he likes to think of them, have, through his nephew, reported behavior improvements in Bridgepoint. Message sent, received and understood. Just a small gift for Jessie!
    He sits contentedly in the morning sun listening to the magpies rasping in the trees. He is old, he decides, but not spent. His mind is intact and strong. He can plan. He can organize. And now, there are ‘projects’ he wants to develop. His life still has purpose. Also, he thinks, with a smile, being in a care home is perfect cover.

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