New Heart Church

by Jim Barringer

  Chapter Four

  Just like Stanley had said, a knock sounded on my door at almost exactly three in the afternoon, distracting me from more album reviews that I had been writing. I’d been trying to reproduce the tone I had in that first one, balanced but with just a little bit of sass, and I thought I was doing pretty well.

  It was Abbie at the door. “Hey there. Ready to go?”

  “Almost. Just got to grab my shoes and jacket. You can come in if you want to.” I didn’t know why I told her that. I didn’t really want her to come in and see how empty my apartment was.

  But she did, and her eyes widened. “Oh wow. No wonder you told me to bring a lawn chair.”

  “What?”

  “That first night, at the cookout. You told me to bring a lawn chair if I came up to your room, because you didn’t have any furniture.”

  “I do remember saying that. Good memory, Abs.”

  She doubled over in laughter. “What did you just call me?”

  “I called you Abs. You know, like the muscles in your stomach?”

  “That might be the worst nickname I’ve ever had.”

  “Does that mean Amy Grant is back on the table? This is good.”

  She giggled, shaking her head. “You’re unstoppable.”

  “I like to think so.” Jacket on, stocking cap perched on my head, I shooed Abbie out the door and locked it behind me. “Let’s do this thing.”

  We pushed out the front door, squinting into the sun, which dipped toward the horizon, bathing the streets and buildings in its golden glow. A crowd was already gathered in the parking lot: Stanley, Danny, Elizabeth, Jarrius, Julius, Willy, DeRon, Jake. I thought, as I walked toward them, how strange it was that after barely two weeks in Texas, I already had more friends than I’d had in Indiana after four years of high school or five years of college.

  Twenty minutes, a car ride, and a short wait at the train station later, we were sitting in the Trinity Railway Express as it rocked and swayed its way toward Dallas in the growing twilight. I was looking out the window, watching the lights come on in the homes of strangers I would never meet, when I felt a hand on my shoulder and jumped in surprise.

  DeRon laughed and slid into the seat next to me. “How’s your nose, man?”

  “Oh, it’s fine. Stopped hurting about the time I got home.”

  “That’s good. I didn’t apologize to you for it.”

  “You don’t need to,” I told him, looking back out the window. “It was an accident.”

  “Yeah, but I’m still sorry. You’re a pretty good shooter. You play in high school?”

  “Yeah, four-year starter in high school, four years again in college.”

  “Four years in college?” I could see the reflection in the window as his eyes went wide. “You ever think about going pro?”

  “Nah, I wasn’t that good. I was just a big fish in a small pond.”

  “Gotcha. You’ll like the game tonight. Mavs are killer.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  The car was almost full by the time we pulled into Victory Station, pushing our way out of the car and through the throngs of people who gathered outside the American Airlines Center. I took in the whole site like a child seeing Christmas for the first time, mesmerized by all the people in jerseys, excited about a common cause. Passing through the turnstile into the concourse was like stepping into another world, a bright and loud world of people, more people than had lived in my hometown, all of them wearing green and white and blue.

  Abbie grabbed me by the hand and dragged me toward the others, who were already walking away, toward the seats up in the top section. We climbed what seemed like a thousand stairs and finally found ourselves sitting in the very top row of the stadium, right on the half-court line, with a great view of the whole arena. I marveled at the whole sight, the newness and energy of it all. I’d never seen anything comparable.

  The others made a bit of small talk for a while until all the lights went out. Excited screams and cheers pierced the dark, while the spotlight came on, tracing out the Mavericks logo on the wood floor, and the players ran out, high-fiving each other. My friends were going nuts, and so was everyone around us, and I watched them, fascinated.

  The first quarter got underway, and I kept watching the spectacle, soaking up the intensity, the devotion to the team and the way people united to support five guys on a basketball court. Five guys, who most of the crowd would never meet, who might be playing for the other team next year, who might be tremendous jerks off the court. But on this night nobody cared. They were Our Team, and we were cheering them.

  It was an electrifying feeling, having that much in common with twenty thousand other people, all cheering for the same thing, all our lives going in the same direction, if only for a little while. The Mavericks were pouring on the style, leading by fifteen points late in the fourth quarter, when I glanced over and saw Abbie cheering. She looked back at me and winked.

  I don’t know if it came from seeing her do that, or if it came out of nowhere, but a thought hit me in the chest like I’d jumped in front of the Trinity Railway Express. It was great and beautiful to be here, having something in common with these people, but it was something temporary, something shallow. In fifteen minutes we’d clear out of the building and I would never see nineteen thousand of them again in my life. We didn’t really have anything at all.

  But my friends, they did have something in common with each other, something even bigger, and something permanent. They had their faith. It held their friendships together, and it was what had made them embrace me. But I didn’t have it. They were including me because they wanted to, because they felt like it was the right thing to do, but I didn’t have the one thing that all bound them to each other. I was an outsider, an interloper, no matter how much they welcomed me in and made me feel wanted. Suddenly I felt very, very alone.

  I must have gone white in the face or something, because Stanley leaned toward me. “You alright?” He had to shout over the roar of the crowd.

  “I don’t know,” I told him.

  He watched me for a few moments, but I had my head between my knees, not watching the game, oblivious to the fact that there was anyone around me.

  A few minutes later, the final horn sounded, and the crowd stood and began filing out of their seats. My friends and I would be among the last people to leave anyway, so high up and so far from the exits, so most of my friends didn’t notice that I was still sitting down. I felt sick. All the things that the others had told me, about not knowing who I was, about not knowing what I wanted in life, all the other stuff, it was bouncing furiously around the inside of my head, stronger now than it had been, and undeniable. I had no idea why it had waited until a basketball game, of all times, to crash down on me, but it had.

  Not wanting my friends to see my distress, I stood, pretending I was okay, and mutely filed out behind them as they celebrated and high-fived strangers. Hands in pockets, I stood at the train station, wearing an insincere smile until I could get back and deal with these feelings in the privacy of my own bedroom.

  “How was the game?” Jarrius asked me.

  “Man, it was great,” I said, with fake enthusiasm. “Never seen anything like it.”

  “You got that right. How bout them Mavericks!” Around half the people at the train station with us hooted their agreement.

  We filed on to the train, which sailed westward into the night, carrying us back toward home. I ended up in a row by myself, staring at the window, trying to force down the feelings that had jumped up at me, unwanted, at the game. I had completely lost track of how much time had gone by when I felt a gentle heave in my seat: someone had sat next to me.

  It was Abbie. “How’s it going over here?”

  “Oh, it’s good. Just looking out the window. I still have a hard time getting over how gigantic this pl
ace is.”

  “It’s pretty huge,” Abbie agreed, looking past my face at the maze of headlights and taillights along the toll road next to the tracks. She seemed to hesitate, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to say what she was thinking. “I realize this might sound a little strange, but I feel like God is telling me to talk to you when we get back.”

  “God wants us to talk,” I said, sounding more skeptical than I intended. I didn’t mean to push her away; I just didn’t want anybody close to me while I was dealing with volatile emotions. “Why can’t we talk now?”

  She stood up. “Never mind.”

  “Wait.” The word was out of my mouth before I knew I was speaking. She looked down at me, hurt, and I couldn’t believe how selfish I was, how my foolish words had brought pain to one of the only people in my life who had ever truly been close to me. “I want to talk to you. I mean, I’d like to talk when we get the chance. Tonight.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t sound convinced, and I watched her move up a few rows and sit next to Elizabeth, glumly staring at the dirty, chewing-gum-speckled floor.

  I bit my lip, furious at what I had done to my friend. I didn’t have too long to beat myself up, though. The whoosh of air brakes and the gentle lurch forward told me that the train was about to pull in to our station.