The Sparrow Found A House (Sparrow Stories #1)

by Jason McIntire

  Chapter 7

  The Room With The Red Door

  The much-anticipated camping trip was rained out that weekend, to the dismay of Moe and Katie but the secret delight of Chris. Now un-grounded, he could be added back to the roster – and was, just in time to mourn with everyone else when another spring storm system washed out the second weekend as well. As the rain came down and the thunder rocked, the family stuck to the house with their various activities.

  Mrs. Sparrow worked on an elaborate dinner most of the day, a practice she had only resumed since meeting the Sergeant. Katie flitted around at her elbow, a surprisingly capable helper for nine years old. Whenever the bright-eyed girl observed that someone else enjoyed doing something, she wanted to try it herself, to find out what they saw in it. She had been helping cook for several days now, and seemed to enjoy it. Katie and her mother even sang together as they worked, beautiful songs in Spanish that Dad had taught Mom long ago.

  Reading a book in his office, Mr. Sparrow cocked the door so he could hear the duet better. Gradually he became aware of another sound, this one emanating from the room across the hall. That room, behind a bright red door, had once been a large utility closet. For Chris’s birthday the year before his father died, Mr. Rivera had wired it and turned it into a “boy cave” for his oldest son. Originally it had contained a TV, a desk, and an old Sega console with a few race car games. Today it was dominated by a honking-tough computer that sported a stack of the latest total immersion combat offerings. From the blasts, shrieks, and machinegun fire the Sergeant could hear through the door, Chris was obviously making use of his collection.

  Mr. Sparrow crossed the hall and looked in on his eldest stepson, who plainly had no idea he was standing there. Chris was enjoying the twentieth level of Kill Or Be Killed: The Epic, a first-person-shooter experience that carried a strong ESRB warning. From what the Sergeant could see, the game mostly involved the slaughter of innumerable foes by the player, though how one could tell friend from foe he wasn’t sure, as nobody wore a uniform. He advanced into the room till he was almost right beside Chris. Though Chris still didn’t notice him, the Sergeant could see his face now, and what he saw disturbed him even more than the splattering blood on the screen. The sixteen-year-old’s features were wrenched into an expression combining hatred and glee, his eyes shining with pleasure whenever the bullets from his simulated gun found their targets. Mr. Sparrow had seen the same look in the eyes of men who had lost their minds in the military.

  “Chris.”

  The boy looked up suddenly with a red-faced gasp, then back to the screen as a simulated enemy blew him away in the momentary pause. “Oh no,” he grumbled. “Just sixty more points and I would have hit Level 21.”

  “Sorry, I’m sure.” The Sergeant flipped on the light and started looking through the video game titles, scratching his head. “Indy,” he read finally. “That’s a classic. I used to play that myself. You’ve got good games, here, son. Why would you want to play all this hack-and-hew shoot-’em-up stuff?”

  “I just like to,” Chris shrugged. “They’re only games, you know. None of it’s real.”

  “I see. Well. Why don’t you come downstairs for awhile? I want to show you how to play a game I used to enjoy with the guys on the base.”

  “Okay.”

  As they passed Moe’s bedroom the Sergeant called out, “We’re playing a game and we need three!” Moe appeared at once. Having just failed in his attempts to make a scale model plastic B-24 fly with an electric motor, his schedule was free.

  They swept junk off the rec room table, and then the Sergeant produced his game in a colorful red box. “It’s called The Settlers of Catan,” he told them. “It’s a civilization game of trading and expansion.”

  Moe scratched his head. Chris rolled his eyes. Civilization, trading, and expansion didn’t sound very exciting next to the mass mayhem of Kill Or Be Killed.

  The Sergeant took no notice. After putting the board together like a random puzzle, he showed them how to place little wooden “settlements” and “roads,” paying for each item from a stash of cards representing various commodities. The settlements, and later cities, would then “produce” more cards, which could be saved or traded with other players.

  “Like baseball cards!” Moe exclaimed.

  “Not exactly,” said the Sergeant, clearing his throat.

  “Catan” still didn’t look very interesting, but they were willing to give it a try. Within a few turns, Moe was absorbed. Chris stayed bored for a bit longer, just out of obligation to himself, but soon forgot to sigh and nap. He was too busy trying to beat Moe to the good wheat by trading wood for the Sergeant’s bricks at two-to-one.

  When the Sergeant finally ended the game with ten points (several turns after he could have done so, but they didn’t know that) two hours had passed like as many minutes.

  “Dad, this game is the coolest,” Moe exclaimed. “Let’s play again!”

  Chris was a bit more reserved, but generously agreed to play one more game, “since Moe wants to.”

  Just then sister Jessie walked by the door, did a double-take, and wheeled back into the room. “What in the world is going on here?” she demanded. “You boys haven’t played a board game since Moe sprained his wrist trying to do ‘acrobat’ in Cranium!”

  “Maybe they just didn’t have the right board game,” suggested the Sergeant. “We’re ‘settling Catan.’ Would you like to join us? We’re about to play again, and there’s room for four.”

  “I’m good, thanks anyway.” With a look of contempt Jessie wandered upstairs, tapping away text messages to her sympathetic friend Izzie. This message is costing me 5 cents, she vented into the keypad. Went through my 50 ‘free’ ones in just a week and a half.

  That is so totally not fair, Izzie agreed. What are you doing this afternoon?

  The return message was short. Nothing to do.

  The second Catan game lasted almost until dinner, and Chris surprised himself by winning in a walk-off. Moe wanted to play again, and it occurred to his older brother that a monster might have just been created.

  “You know, Chris,” said the Sergeant as they packed up the game, “I think this is what a game should be. Something fun and interesting we do together. Tell me, how do you feel right now?”

  “Um, kinda tired,” Chris laughed uncomfortably. “But good.”

  “How do you feel after a two-hour session of Kill Or Be Killed?”

  “Really tired,” Chris admitted, though he saw where this was going. “And good, at first – but then, I don’t know, not so good.”

  “Do you ever have headaches or bad dreams you associate with the shooter games?”

  “That’s a pretty good guess,” Chris conceded quietly.

  “People say those games are harmless,” the Sergeant continued, “because they don’t hurt anyone for real. Which is true, in the sense that the guys in the computer are just so many ones and zeroes from some programmer’s brain. The person who gets hurt is on your side of the trigger, son. It’s you. I don’t want you to hurt yourself like that,” he said gently. “Don’t you think you should get rid of the games?”

  “I guess I should get rid of some of them.” Chris looked away as he poured some pieces into a plastic bag. “It’s just....” He sighed.

  “It’s just what?” his stepfather asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, Sergeant, you wouldn’t understand how I feel. You’re a human tank. I mean, you look like you worked out every day from the age of two, and drank whey protein in your Froot Loops. You probably played sports and did well and had lots of girls lining up to date you. Me... well, look at me. I weigh two ten and rising, and it ain’t muscle. The only way they’d let me on a sports team would be as the ball. I’m so far down on the totem pole at school, I get bullied by the geeks and wimps. I feel like Jessie’s little brother. Actually sometimes I feel like Moe and Katie’s little brother! The only time I really feel powerful is when I�
�m blowing some guy up on one of those games. Can you understand why I need that feeling?”

  The Sergeant slipped the lid on the Catan box and thought for a moment. “You’re right about one thing,” he said. “I was a tank, I did play football, I did have lots of girlfriends. And I was absolutely miserable.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “I didn’t either, but it was true. By college, I felt that my life was meaningless, exhausted, drained like an empty bottle. I was turning it upside down and shaking it, trying to get another drop of satisfaction, but I couldn’t. I actually considered ‘breaking’ that bottle out of sheer boredom.”

  “And then you started going to church, right?”

  “I wish that were true, but no. I simply decided to quit indulging myself and thinking so much. To that end, I entered the military, and I found that the structure gave me some purpose. The Army kept me going until the Lord got hold of me much later, and I found out where the real purpose is.

  “But Chris, my point is this: Ultimately, you don’t feel miserable and unfulfilled and wanting to hurt somebody because you’re overweight, or weak, or unpopular. You simply feel more keenly the non-fulfillment and misery and inadequacy we all know deep down. And you know why we feel that way? It’s because we are inadequate, and miserable, and without God completely unfulfilled. So we chase things that we think will fill the holes, and when we can’t catch them, we take out our frustration in any way we can find.”

  “Gotta do something with it.”

  “Yes, you do – get rid of it, at the root. Fix it. Look, you could be six foot two and captain of the football team tomorrow, and you’d feel better, but deep down you still wouldn’t be happy, fulfilled, and peaceful. You’d always be looking for the next validation, the next thrill, the next fulfillment, your whole life. None of those things will fill the hole.”

  “And I guess you’re going to tell me that Jesus will?”

  “Chris, that hole is there specifically so you’ll find Him. It’s there to show you that something is missing from your life without God – something much bigger than the hole itself, the lack of fulfillment, the inadequacy. Like all people, you’re separated from God, and the frustrations in your life are just an obvious temporary symptom of a deep eternal problem.”

  Chris was quiet for a moment. “So,” he hesitated, “let’s say maybe I was interested and wanted to know more. What would I do?”

  “Well, for starters, you could join me and your mom and the twins at night. It’s nothing scary; we read the Bible and pray together.”

  “Would I have to pray out loud?”

  “No one has to.”

  “Okay, I guess I’ll try it.”

  “Good. Also, I want you to know, Chris, that your mother and I pray for each of you kids individually every night. And that I love you all, as if you were my own.”

  Chris turned in the doorway. “Thanks, Dad,” he said.