Hometown Legend

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  “You’re not even gonna be friends?”

  “I don’t think he wants a friend.”

  “Maybe he’s shy. You ought to try to draw him out.”

  She took off her sweater and leaned back against the door to her room. “Daddy, we don’t talk about the bad times too much, do we?”

  “The bad times?”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Yes,” she said, as if I’d just said the stupidest thing she could imagine. “I’m sure you remember.”

  “God brought us through it,” I said.

  “We just concentrate on that, don’t we?”

  “Try to stay positive, sure.”

  “But Daddy, it wasn’t easy. I had awful days and lots of them.”

  I nodded. “So did I. Still do sometimes.”

  “We should talk about those, because sometimes I think we’re pretending there’s only one way to remember Mama, and it’s just the good stuff.”

  I stood and stretched. What had brought this on? “Your mother was the finest—”

  “See, Daddy? I know that! And I’m not trying to remember anything bad about her. But we’re so used to saying that God brought us through and that we’re gonna see her in heaven again someday—”

  “And we are.”

  “I know, but let me finish! We say all that so much that it makes me forget what I went through.”

  “I’d rather not remember, honey.”

  “Me either, but that’s just it! It isn’t real. I mean, I know it’s true about God and Jesus and heaven, but who can believe us when we talk about Mama dying and act like it was the best thing that ever happened to us?”

  “The best th—?”

  “You know what I mean! Sure, we’d rather she was still with us, but we act like it’s okay because we’ll all be together again someday.”

  “I believe that, Rachel.”

  Suddenly she was sobbing. I reached for her, but she covered her eyes with one hand and held up the other to keep me away. “I believe it, Daddy! But I was so young! I understood my mom had died and yet I didn’t really understand, and sometimes I still can’t! It was like someone had sucked the air out of the world and I couldn’t breathe. I kept expecting to see her, and lots of times I thought I did. I dreamt about her. And I wanted to talk to her about how hard it was!”

  “I did the best I could, Rach—”

  “Daddy, you’re the best and I love you and I don’t know what else you could have done. But I remember years, years of a blackness inside me, a hole I couldn’t climb out of. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was my fault.”

  “Rachel!”

  “I know it doesn’t make sense, but I didn’t know it then, and I couldn’t talk to you about it. But if I had been a better girl, if I had obeyed more or been more quiet or more helpful or—”

  “Rachel, don’t!”

  She finally let me embrace her. “Daddy, I know. I wasn’t responsible and there was nothing I could have done, but when you’re that young you don’t know. I said the right things enough times that I believed them. I know Mama is better off. I know she’s with Jesus. I know I’m lucky to have a dad who loves me. But I don’t think other people realized what we were going through. It’s not their fault either, but I don’t want to pretend it wasn’t awful.”

  I was rocked. She’d always been such a good kid that I thought she was tougher than I was, that she had dealt with things better than me. Maybe I hadn’t handled her the way I should have. I wanted to ask her what had brought this on from walking with Elvis Jackson. But she was through talking.

  31

  Rachel awoke at 5:30 in the morning and wrote a note to Elvis Jackson.

  “It hurt me to feel awkward around you yesterday, and I could tell you were uncomfortable too. Can’t we talk? Doesn’t our argument seem petty now? I want to be your friend, but that takes two. Though it hurt, you struck a nerve when you implied I was unrealistic about my mother. You’re right. I’ve hidden the truth. I don’t know what happened to your parents and I don’t need to know unless you want to tell me. But it’s clear you have not glossed over your pain. It’s made you angry, but my dad tells me that most people’s strength is also their weakness.

  “Well, that must work both ways, because if what you’ve pushed down inside you and won’t talk about has made you angry, it’s also made you driven and persistent. I can’t see your eyes when you run with the football, but I imagine that the look on your face when you’re refusing to be caught and tackled is the same as when you refused to tell me about your parents and when you accused me of pretending I wasn’t suffering. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll tell you the truth about what it’s been like for me if you’ll promise to do the same.

  “You can take your time. For all I know you haven’t ever been able to tell anyone. You were young, and if your relatives wouldn’t take you in, they don’t seem like the type of people you’d open up to. And since you kept getting passed to different foster families, well, obviously that wasn’t the right kind of atmosphere where you could talk with people. And you said you ran from the last family, so …

  “What do you say, Elvis? I’ll be in the courtyard at lunch. If you don’t want to join me, it’s okay. And like I said, I’ll do the talking this time. You’ll learn you can talk to me. It’ll be just between us, and I won’t ask you again to tell me what you’re feeling. I don’t know if this makes any sense, but I sure hope I see you at lunch.”

  Rachel would pass Elvis in the hall after first hour and hand him the note. Paying attention in calculus was impossible. What if he went a different way to avoid her? What if he wouldn’t look at her, like yesterday? Well, if it came to that, she knew where his locker was. She could stick the note through the vents and hope he saw it in time to decide what he wanted to do at noon.

  Rachel’s heart thundered as she headed for second hour, the note folded small in her palm. She spotted Elvis from a distance and thought he saw her too, but as they got closer, he flushed and she couldn’t catch his eye. He was fumbling with his books. Scared as she was, Rachel was not going to let the moment pass. She angled toward him and stood in his path. When he stopped, forcing a smile, she thrust out her note—just as he handed her one. Both notes dropped to the floor. They both knelt to grab them and banged knees. She said, “This reminds me of when we met.”

  He laughed. “Don’t remind me. Gotta go.”

  “Oh!” she said, realizing she had picked up her own note. They traded and she ran to second period. She felt like a junior higher, using her textbook to hide the note as she unfolded it at her desk.

  When she saw the simple printing, she pressed a hand to her neck and a sob rose in her throat. “Dear Rachel: I’m sorry about what I said. Will you forgive me? I just want to be friends too and you don’t have to feel any pressure. Let me know. Love (as a friend) Elvis P. Jackson.”

  Rachel put the note away, only to slip it out again twice more before the end of class. Each time she unfolded it she was overcome with a feeling that Elvis was in some ways stuck at the age when he’d lost his parents.

  She knew nothing would be longer than her classes before lunch. Elvis would come, she knew it. But lunch break was so short. She wanted to say enough but not too much. Above all she wanted to give him a glimpse of her real self and get him used to telling the truth about his deepest feelings. She pressed her fingers above her eyes and realized this would be new to her too.

  • • •

  Though Elvis had quickly become one of the stars of the football team, Rachel noticed he didn’t seem to have any friends. She had eaten lunch with him a few times, finding him by himself eating a snack, never a meal. Though he worked at Tee’s, and Rachel knew he wasn’t paying rent, he had apparently decided not to spend his money on lunch either. Once she asked him how he could get enough fuel and energy for football practice with just a bag of chips for lunch. He’d smiled. “I can’t,” he’d said, “without this,” and he held up his carton of chocolate mi
lk.

  “Yech!” she said. “Corn chips and chocolate milk?”

  “Two chocolate milks,” he said, and though he grinned as if he enjoyed repulsing her, she knew he had to be self-conscious. “Lunch of champions,” he added. Rachel tried not to look disgusted. She wondered how he could look so healthy and strong and clear-skinned. “I make up for all this after work every night,” he said. “Tee fixes me whatever I want, and I always want the same. Rare steak and mashed potatoes.” Rachel had wondered what he did for breakfast, but it was none of her business.

  Today, as she sat in the courtyard with her lunch and an open book in front of her, Rachel couldn’t eat. She couldn’t read either. Josie came out from the cafeteria and invited her in. “Tomorrow,” Rachel said. “Thanks anyway.”

  “C’mon!”

  “Can’t today.”

  “Well, sor-ry!”

  Rachel laughed it off. If Elvis showed up soon, Josie would see why she was unavailable. And here he came.

  Rachel smiled and waved, but that seemed to embarrass him. He carried one chocolate milk, and she guessed he had already eaten his chips and drunk the other carton. “Do me a favor, would you?” she said, as he sat across from her in the grass. “Throw this sandwich away for me? I had too big a breakfast, and I’m not gonna eat it.”

  “You sure?”

  “Unless you want it. I hate to waste it.”

  “If you’re gonna throw it out,” he said.

  “Please, really.”

  He unwrapped it while she pretended to finish reading. She had made the sandwich from leftover chicken, lettuce, and a little butter and mayonnaise. He seemed to shudder with the first big bite, and he ate fast. “I can hear you,” she whispered.

  “Sorry,” he said, his mouth full. He took a gulp of milk. “Great. This is great!”

  She shut her book and smiled. “I’m glad you came.”

  He looked away, his face red. “So you forgive me?”

  “I do,” she said. “And I want to talk to you about, you know. But we don’t have much time.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded.

  “I figured out why I sounded phony about losing my mom,” Rachel said.

  He raised his index finger. “I didn’t mean phony, but—”

  “Sure you did, and you were right, but Elvis, I’ve been doing that for so long, I didn’t even know. I think I talk like that because of my dad. Not that he makes me but just because I know it might hurt him if he knew how hard it really was for me.”

  “He doesn’t seem like that kind of guy,” Elvis said. “The way he looks at you and talks to you, he seems all right.”

  “But we usually only talk about my mom having been so wonderful and being in heaven now.”

  “I know. It bothered me because I thought you were just being, what’s the word … ?”

  “Unrealistic?”

  Elvis nodded and looked away, busying himself with the lunch trash. “I wasn’t saying it wasn’t true, because I guess if you believe it, that makes it true. I just couldn’t believe you could, I don’t know, take it so well with what you’ve had to go without and all that. Maybe you are okay with it after all these years.”

  Rachel stacked her books and sat up straight. “I want to admit something to you, Elvis, but can I argue with you too?”

  He smirked. “You already proved that.”

  She looked at her watch. “We’re not gonna be able to finish this now, but—”

  “I was hoping we’d have to talk again.”

  She felt her face flush. “I just want to say that you were right. I don’t only remember good things about my mom’s death, but for so many years I’ve said what people want to hear and what my dad wants to hear. I believe it cause it’s true, but you hit my problem right on the head. I’ve kinda pushed down my other feelings about all that. They try to come back now and then, but I just start smiling and talking about how much God loves us and has taken care of us, and I keep ignoring the bad memories and the stuff that really hurts. And I don’t think that’s good.”

  “It’s not honest, anyway,” Elvis said.

  “True. But I disagree with something you said—that if I believe something, that makes it true.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Even if it’s not true?”

  He cocked his head. “It’s not like I’ve thought it through. It’s just that there’s stuff I used to believe and I don’t anymore. It’s not true to me.”

  “But it’s true to other people?”

  “If they really believe it.”

  She stood and gathered her things. “We better get going. My next class is in Corridor D.”

  “I’m in C. I’ll walk you.”

  “So, let me ask you, Elvis. Is something true if you believe it but not true if you don’t?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So my mom’s in heaven with God and I’ll see her there someday if I believe that. But if I don’t believe it, she’s not there?”

  They stopped at Elvis’s class. “You might be too smart for me, Rachel.”

  “No,” she said. “But I might be more logical. By your reasoning, if something’s true because you believe it, then it’s not true if you don’t.”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  “So if I get killed in a car wreck tonight, I’m only dead if you believe it?”

  Rachel thought she had drilled home her point, but Elvis clouded over as if she had punched him in the face. “Don’t even say that! Why would you say something like that?”

  She was flattered. He didn’t want to think about something awful happening to her, but he had to see that whether he believed it or not had nothing to do with whether it was true. “I’m sorry,” she said, smiling. “I’m just saying—”

  “You’re saying nothing to me!” he said. “Just forget it!”

  And he left her standing there.

  32

  Rachel stopped in to see me after my class and asked if I would drive her to Tee’s Diner after practice so she could talk to Elvis.

  “I thought you weren’t gonna—”

  “Daddy, please. Will ya?”

  “Course.”

  “But I don’t wanna be seen waiting for you. How bout I visit Bev and you pick me up at her house?”

  I nodded and started to walk her out, but she wasn’t finished. “Daddy,” she said, “what happened to Elvis Jackson’s parents?”

  I had to think about that one. “I know what he told Coach and me,” I said, “but unless he wants to tell you himself, I don’t guess I ought to.”

  She told me about their notes and their conversation. I looked at the floor. “You were trying to get him to tell you about his parents?”

  “Eventually. I know it’s too hard for him now, but if I can be honest about Mama, he’ll open up. But I said something wrong. I was just trying to show him he was being illogical about what’s really true or not.”

  “Let me just tell ya, you chose the wrong example.”

  “They were killed in a wreck, weren’t they?”

  I nodded. “You can’t let on that I told you that.”

  • • •

  I had to run to catch up with the team as they left the field house for practice. “Glad you could make it,” Coach said. “Should I make you run laps?”

  “Probably,” I said. “It’d only be fair.”

  “Hey, how’s that secretary a yours doing?”

  I’d’ve been hung out to dry if I called her a secretary in the wrong company, but I didn’t need to get into that with Coach. I brought him up to date. “She got a case against Memorial?” he said.

  “Probably,” I said, “but she’s not the type to go after em. She’ll say everybody makes mistakes.”

  “Quite a mistake,” he said. I nodded. “Anyway, glad you’re here, Sawyer. You wouldn’t a wanted to miss my Longleaf Pine speech.”

  I chuckled. “Heard that one three years in a row.”

  “You wanna give it?”
“It’s all yours, Coach. I wouldn’t want to steal that thunder.”

  “It inspired you, though, didn’t it? C’mon, tell the truth. Did I waste my breath on that one?”

  “Nah, it was all right.”

  “Just all right? I always thought that was one a my best.”

  I smiled, remembering how some of the guys snickered behind his back.

  “What? Now, come on. That speech carried me to a lot of championships.”

  “Then I know you’ll do your best with it today.”

  • • •

  The guys were finishing up a scrimmage when Coach called em around. “Take a knee!” he said. “Helmets off. I wanna tell ya about one of my favorite trees. That’s right, this is a tree story. I’ve long loved this tree, not cause it’s so beautiful, but because if you know something about it, you gotta respect it and learn from it.”

  “Learn from a tree?” Sherman Naters said.

  “Why don’t you wait till the end of my story till you decide whether it’s got anything to teach you. I been talking bout this tree for years, but it wasn’t until nine years after I left Alabama that the state legislature proved they were smart as I was and named it the state tree. Who knows what tree I’m talking about? Anybody? Nobody? Come on, you don’t remember this? I heard about it in Kansas City forevermore, and they didn’t teach you kids about it? Who can guess?”

  Yash raised his hand. “Some kind of pine.”

  “Yes, sir! Some kind of pine, all right! What kind?”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Coach Sawyer, tell em what kind of a pine we’re talking about.”

  After all my bragging about memorizing his speech I couldn’t remember. And he had just told me. All I knew was that it had real long needles. “Long-needle pine!” I said.

  “Oh, Coach Sawyer, I should make you run!”

  “Longleaf Pine!” I said.

  “More specific.”

  I shook my head.

  “The Southern Longleaf Pine, gentlemen! What’s so special about this tree? I’m gonna tell ya! The Southern Longleaf Pine can get big around as four feet and stand 150 feet tall. That’s a big tree, but you know what it looks like before it’s five years old? Anyone? Before it starts shooting up and developing foot-long needles and cones big as a cob a corn, it looks like a little lump a grass. That’s right. The top is just needles, and all the growth those first few years is happening under the ground. Know why I’m telling you this? Huh? Anyone?”