Journey From Heaven

by Joe Derkacht

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  Sitting on the high, backless stool to my drafting table, especially for hours on end, might seem uncomfortable to some people. To me, since my early teens, it had been a place for dreaming and relaxing even as I drew up plans for my various projects. In fact, no place seemed more right, where I felt both at rest and at my most productive. The one place that rivaled it was my workshop, where I could bring into being the dreams that were birthed here—a workshop now several miles distant—a nuisance, now that I thought of it.

  Having placed a mug of steaming hot Earl Grey along with the last of the journals on the drafting table, I shoved aside the vague sense of dread I felt and thumbed through the pages until I came to where I’d last left off reading. Actually I had been procrastinating this moment for fear of discovering that something terrible had happened to Judith. The something that had sent me once again into the abyss just a couple of days ago?

  The sheer length of the final entry suggested nothing unusual had happened, though, judging by my usual pattern; more emotionally disturbing events typically evoked my briefest responses. Contrasting with the length was my handwriting; it was once again shaky, not a good sign, almost as if I’d been suffering from an extreme chill or an attack of severe arthritis.

  Sipping from my tea mug, I ignored the entry date and began reading. The first words were: Dr. Ray says he doesn’t like the look of it.

  Dr. Ray? I wracked my memory but was at a loss. Did I mean my dentist? I vaguely recalled my dentist’s first name was Ray.

  He’s arranged the test for me in Portland. He says we’ll know the answer within a few days.

  When I next remembered my tea, the mug was cold in my hand, perhaps chilled by my icy grip. Looking up from the table, I saw daylight was beginning to fade. It occurred to me that if I hurried, I just might make it to Old Baldy by sunset.

  While some people put hours into planning a campout, for me it was merely a matter of opening a closet in the utility room and grabbing out my backpack, already loaded with all the paraphernalia I needed, including a can of Deet. For water, I took along the same mug I’d been drinking tea from; within yards of my favorite camping spot, a spring ran ten times sweeter and more satisfying than any bottled water I’d ever sampled, no matter how famous or expensive. For food, trail mix and a couple of candy bars would do fine. Except for heating water on my little camp stove for tea, I wouldn’t be doing any cooking. My actual preparations took less time than it did to lace up my hiking boots and zip up my windbreaker. The mountain awaited me. I was on my way in under fifteen minutes.

  Two hours later I had pitched my tent and set out my folding campstool. The small grove of trees, as I’d expected, was unoccupied; few people ever actually camped on Old Baldy. In spite of its commanding ocean views, suffering from unpredictable winds and rains (because of its bony visage thrust into the wild Pacific) had never made it anyone’s favorite, especially with excellent State parks north, south, and east of Driftwood Bay. No campsites or RV hookups, here, and whatever ranger one might encounter on the mountain would be a game warden, since the mountain was home to a federal game preserve. As for the rumors of mountain lions and bears, I’d never seen signs of anything wilder than the plentiful elk or deer, or the occasional bobcat. In fact, most of the wildlife ran to squirrels and skunks, possums and raccoons, jays, crows, and seagulls, along with bats the most exotic creature among them. How many times had I seen leather-winged apparitions swarm from Old Baldy’s caves, as twilight settled over the mountain?

  If a bat had landed on my head that night, I wouldn’t have noticed. Not even one of Driftwood Bay’s spectacular sunsets could make the least impression on me. Wearied by the hike from my home and stunned into a sort of psychic exhaustion by what I’d read in my journal, I went to bed and rolled up into a fetal ball.

  When I opened my eyes in the middle of the night, I think I smelled the smoke before I actually understood that it was the glow of a fire I saw reflected from my tent ceiling. Through the mesh of my tent door, I saw flames. Beyond, someone dressed in a white shirt and dark tie sat on my campstool, his face clearly illuminated by the flickering firelight. It was Reverend Grunwald. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and zipped open the door.

  The night air was unusually balmy and sweet smelling, more like the flowers of summer than the smoke of the burning pine boughs I expected. Overhead, the stars flashed gaudily, with infinitely more glory than the precious gems found in any jeweler’s shop. The melancholy hooting of owls sounded from the dark mass of trees above, while nearer still a jovial choir of frogs advertised their presence.

  Folding my legs under me, I took a seat across from him and waited, expecting him to speak first. For the moment, it didn’t occur to me to ask what he was doing; it seemed enough to know that he had come and that we shared the same campfire. The fire crackled, pitch ran hot and bright onto the coals, and we continued in a fellowship of silence, neither of us needing to openly acknowledge the other’s presence. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. It was more as if the wind had snuck up behind me to speak quietly in my ear.

  “God knows you.”

  From reading my journals, I knew he had given me a lot of advice these last seven years even if I couldn’t remember exactly what had occasioned much of it. Though he had yet to lift his eyes from the campfire, he must have sensed my bafflement.

  “God is the only one who really knows us, John. Down to the core, the hidden things, the forgotten things, the who and what he designed us for. Everything.”

  Maybe from frustration, I think I sighed. He pulled out a Bible from nowhere and flipped it open to somewhere near the end. At last, having settled his reading glasses over his nose, he looked up at me.

  “I want to tell you about something from the book of Revelation,” he said. “Have you ever heard about those who are given the white stone?”

  I shook my head. The book of Revelation, like most anything in the Bible that involved prophets and the prophetic, was a complete mystery to me.

  “To those who overcome, he promises to give them a white stone with a name on it, a secret name God alone knows. Do you know what that means?”

  Again, I shook my head.

  “As for the stone itself, the Romans considered a white stone as a symbol of joy. Far more importantly, I think, is that it bears the name God has for you, John. That name encompasses everything he created you for, meant for you and meant for you to be, the deepest, most penetrating truth he sees about you and destines for you. So if you lose your way—”

  He hesitated, his snowy eyebrows knitting together as if in contemplation of some mystery that might be entirely unrelated to his conversation with me. Understandably, that might have been my imagination, or maybe it was simply the uncertain light. In either case, something was very different about him that I couldn’t quite pin down: for one, he seemed more robust than I remembered. Even Tyrollia, who was considerably older, usually looked like she had a surer grip on the life force we all possess than he did.

  “If you should forget your name or even your own face, God still knows the real you.”

  Unsure of how to respond, I nodded my head.

  “Alzheimer’s,” he said, triggering my memory of his wife’s death. I was amazed at how calmly he was able to say the word. I had seen him weep over her inability, in her last months on earth, to recognize him or any of their grown children or grandchildren and great grandchildren.

  “Or a stroke, or electroshock, it doesn’t matter,” he rushed on. “None of those, no, not one, can ever take away the name that awaits us in heaven.”

  “What does it mean to be an overcomer?”

  Dread settled over me, as he hesitated again, evidently pondering how to answer. I couldn’t see how anyone could consider me an overcomer. Martyrs were overcomers, I didn’t doubt, as were missionaries and people in full-time ministry. People like him, which pretty much
left me out. What kind of destiny did I have, when I sometimes couldn’t remember anything, much less my name or my own face?

  “I’ll read you the answer,” he said. He turned back several pages in his Bible. “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world? He who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

  He closed his Bible, removed his reading glasses, and settled his gaze on me. Kindliness lit his face.

  “I won’t even ask, John. You’ve told me more than once you believe in the Lord, and I baptized you myself.”

  “I don’t remember,” I said. Still, something had seemed to warm in my chest, as he spoke.

  “But I do, and far more importantly, infinitely more, God remembers.”

  Again, I felt that strangely comforting sensation in my chest. I did believe... I had believed before and would believe again, even if I didn’t feel I fully grasped the meaning of that belief. A vague memory stirred in my brain, of my father leaning over me and telling me he loved me and that he knew God loved me, too.

  I was twelve or thirteen years old and sitting at the kitchen table. The table was new, the kitchen cabinets, the walls—everything was new. The walls still awaited plastering. Then I remembered why: dynamite. In the garage, I had unexpectedly discovered a box left over from one of my father’s stump-clearing jobs. After taping together several sticks, I managed to insert a cap like I’d once seen my father do and attached about six inches of fuse. Then wandered with the destructive little package from the garage into my mother’s bedroom.

  My mother, my beautiful, beautiful mother was gone. They had come and taken her away, and now she was dead. What point was there to this house and everything my father had made for her—the custom made vanity, bed, and long bureau? Why shouldn’t I blow it all away?

  Because of the resulting rubble, I had been taken to the same place, too, where she had died, for a very long time afterwards. Now I was back, and everything was new, including my father. He leaned close, his craggy features filling my view. Between us on the table, he had opened a shiny black Bible.

  “Nobody can bring your mother back, Johnny,” he said. “I can’t and neither can you. Do you understand that? We make decisions, decisions we sometimes can’t change our minds about, which is what your mother did.”

  He paused for a long moment, his face contorting with emotion. His fingers clutched at the pages of the Bible.

  “But while you were in the—” he began, still choking up, not able to spit out the word hospital. He paused again, set his jaw, and began reading to me.

  “ ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth in him is saved. He that believeth not is already condemned.’ ”

  He flipped through a bunch of pages, and began reading again.

  “ ‘The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ ”

  Still, without looking up, he leafed back through the pages, before stopping to read.

  “ ‘To as many of them as believed, gave he the power to become the sons of God.’ ”

  Finally, he closed the Bible and looked at me.

  “You can’t have your mother back, Johnny,” he said, struggling to control his quivering lower lip. “I can’t have her back, either. We both know that. But while you’ve been away, I’ve found something that means even more to me. Do you want to know what it is?”

  I nodded, unsure as to what else I could do or say.

  “God is here with us. All we need to do is believe in his son and invite him into our hearts. No matter the pain or loss we feel, he can heal it all. Listen to this.”

  Again, he was flipping through the pages. He stopped near the end of the book.

  “ ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.’

  “Do you get it, Johnny? It’s a gift, a gift He’s inviting us to take. He’s not trying to keep it from us. He wants us to have it! Eternal life with him! Isn’t that great?”

  Great? I didn’t know if anything was great. My own truth was that after two years of treatments, as they called them, my brain was too numb, even more numb than it had been on the day they called to tell us my mother had died at the State Hospital, to know or care about that day, the next, or any day following. Still, I nodded my head. My father, taking it to mean far more than it really did, told me to bow my head and pray after him, which I did, stumbling and stuttering after each phrase.

  “Dear Jesus—”

  “I want to receive this gift—”

  “If you want to make me your child—”

  “I’d really like that—”

  “So please come into my heart, now—”

  “And do all the stuff you’ve said in your word—”

  “Even if I don’t know much about this stuff—”

  “I’m sure you’ll teach me all I need to know.”

  “Amen.”

  When I finished with the Amen, actually saying it without my usual stammer, I saw tears in his eyes, something I’d never seen before. I didn’t know if it was from seeing the tears, or something else, but that same strange warmth spread through my chest again. Whatever had just happened between us, no matter how much I had stumbled in repeating his makeshift prayer, it was something very real, more real than anything I’d ever experienced before.

  Vaguely, looking back, I recalled touching my mother’s flaming Zippo lighter to the fuse. Still holding on tightly, I watched in fascination as the fire crawled toward the sticks. Sixty seconds to a foot, I’d heard my father tell someone. Or at least that’s what I’d thought, which meant thirty for six inches. It seemed to be going faster. I pinched the fuse between thumb and forefinger, suddenly thinking to quench it. What am I doing? The fire crawled right past, scorching my fingers, jerking my hands toward the bed. The dynamite landed on a pillow, and I turned and ran, not knowing if there was time even to reach the bedroom door.

  The explosion came as I slammed a second door, the living room door, behind me and dove into the front yard.

  I must have lost track of time. Thinking back over forty years can do that to a person. When I looked up again, expecting to see Reverend Grunwald across the brightly burning fire, I saw an empty campstool. Perhaps my consciousness, like my memory, was made of Swiss cheese.

  Rising stiffly from the grass, I went back to my sleeping bag, grateful that Reverend Grunwald had taken it upon himself to leave his own bed in the middle of the night to visit me. How many people in the world would do that for another human being, in particular for someone like me? Not many, I was sure.

  Don’t fear, John, it won’t be long now. Your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you or your many good deeds.

  Startled, I opened my eyes. Hunched over me in the pitch blackness was a golden figure. Reflexively closing my eyes, and just as quickly reopening them, I discovered he had disappeared. Was the mountain still home to a few Indians nobody else knew about? Strangely, this one had been as bald as Old Baldy itself, not my idea of a Native American. Nor had I ever dreamed any Indian could appear to be made of gold, or be as oppressively massive as this one, his head a great block set atop a chest and shoulders of even greater blocks.

  How could he know my name? I wondered sleepily. Memory of him was already fading, the darkness closing in like the ocean around a sinking rock.

  I rose later than planned, with the sun gleaming between two of Old Baldy’s peaks. Breakfast was a cup of icy cold spring water more bracing than a snort of whiskey. I was tying my sleeping bag to my backpack frame when I heard a rumbling noise. A black and white SUV 4x4 appeared through the trees and rolled up to my c
ampsite.

  Blackie killed the engine. Through the windshield I saw him shake his head as Tryg opened the passenger door to step out. Blackie followed, though pointedly ignoring me while he walked about, gingerly shaking the stiffness out of his left leg. I heard him grumble something under his breath about the blasted clutch.

  “Doc Ray’s mad,” Tryg said, staring at me. As an afterthought, he added, “So is Zell.”

  Tryg looked mad, too, but maybe wasn’t saying so because he was more an employee of mine than a business partner. Or maybe it was worry I saw in his face. I couldn’t really say for sure, never being all that good at reading people.

  “You saw my journal?” I asked.

  “He didn’t have to,” Blackie said. “Ray called Zell at the store when he heard you missed your appointment.” He adjusted his gun belt and hitched up his pants to tuck in his shirt properly.

  “Good thing I didn’t catch you up here startin’ no fires.”

  I glanced at the few square yards of flattened grass that had served as my campsite. The only thing left to secure was my folding campstool. Fire? Why would I need a fire, when I had my little single-burner camp stove?

  As I climbed into Blackie’s SUV for the trip back, I glanced at the campsite again. Where were the dead ashes and the circle of stones from last night? I turned to Tryg and asked him if he’d seen Reverend Grunwald lately.

  “Oh, John,” Blackie answered for him.

  If Blackie’s response weren’t enough, Tryg’s shocked look was. I started to say something, then thinking better of it, clamped my mouth shut and instead stared out the window. How many times in my life had I heard that same Oh, John?

  In my weariness over reading about my past seven years, I’d finally skipped ahead to reach the last entry. Somewhere in those pages leading up to the end, I was sure I would find an entry about Reverend Grunwald’s death and maybe even his funeral.