Elgin winced, and I wished Neal could spare him this. It was little surprise to me, though I had tried to believe otherwise.
“I been an alcoholic since high school. Not just drinkin, but needing it, doing anything to get it, lettin it run my life. There were times I controlled it a little, sometimes in the minors, just after your mom and I got married. But I never got a handle on it. My job was drinkin and everything else was just to finance it, right up till the time I killed that old man.”
“You said that was an accident.”
“Elgin, I’m tellin you I was a liar. Believe what I told you about baseball. But everything else I ever told you, you can take to the dump. You know your mom believes I killed our baby.”
“Yeah, but I know you—”
“Well, I did. I didn’t mean to, but I was drunk and not thinkin and raging mad. Just because they never busted me for it don’t mean I didn’t do it. I live with it every day. That baby girl comes to me in the middle of the night sometimes and—”
Elgin recoiled, and I stepped from behind him to put my hand over Neal’s. His lean, cold fingers twitched. “Neal, he’s just a boy. Be careful, please.”
Neal’s lips had begun to quiver. “I just wanna tell you, El. Don’t ever even try booze. It’ll kill you just like it’s gonna kill me. I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done that’s made life hard for you. I wanted to give you everything and see you be whatever you wanted to be.”
“I want to be a ballplayer like you, Daddy.”
Neal shook his head and held up his free hand. The blanket slid from his shoulders. I pulled it up around him again. He smelled of the infirmary.
“Be a ballplayer, El. But don’t be like me.”
He turned to force his other leg under the table, rested on his elbows, and held his face in his hands. I went around and sat beside him, my knees facing away from the table. I pulled the blanket up around his shoulders again as his body jerked with sobs.
“Daddy, I forgive you,” Elgin said. “I forgive you for everything.”
“You always have,” Neal whined. “Even when I was still makin excuses and lying about bein sorry.”
Elgin looked at me and I felt the accusation.
“Give us a minute, honey,” I told him, but he hesitated. I looked to the chaplain, who hurried over. I signaled him with a nod toward Elgin.
“Son, let’s give your mom and dad a couple of minutes, hm?”
“I’ll be right back, Daddy.”
Neal remained hidden behind his knuckly hands, weeping. “I’m through lyin, Mir,” he said. “I never convinced you of anything anyway, but I’m through.”
Something in me needed to hear this, yet I took no joy in his pain as I once had.
“Oh, Miriam,” he whimpered, “can’t you forgive me? Everything you ever accused me of was true. I’m sorry for the other women, I’m sorry about the baby, I’m sorry about the old man, I’m sorry for what I’ve done to Elgin and to you.”
I took his head in my hands and pulled him to me, cradling him like the baby he was, the pitiable, helpless, hopeless infant I had longed to rock in my arms since I lost my own at his hands.
“I need to hear you say it,” he said, but I could not speak. The man would soon pay the ultimate price for his worthless past. Who was I to forgive him? How was it possible I could let go and tell him what he needed to hear? Why should he die in peace when I had to live in turmoil?
But he would not die in peace, regardless what I said. I would not lie. I could not forgive him if I didn’t feel it in my heart. But even then, did I have to say it? Why was the onus on me? He could apologize for a year and cry twenty-four hours a day, and it would not bring back to me the treasures he had ripped away.
Why couldn’t I let it go? His alcoholism was beyond a character weakness by now. He could not be sorry for the hold it still had on him; he could be sorry only for the choices that had brought him here. I held him and rocked him and heard his pathetic, woeful weeping.
He pulled back from me. His were the eyes of a dead man.
“If I could make it up to you, Miriam, I would work around the clock for the rest of my life. Call me a liar every time before. Say I was bein phony every time I turned over a new leaf, and you’d be right. Sometimes I thought I meant it, but I could never make it stick. This time, Mir, I got nothin to gain except your forgiveness. You won’t be saying it’s all right. You won’t be saying you’re all right or the boy’s all right or that I can just forget about all the pain I’ve brought you.
“You won’t be saying everything can be wiped away with a word. All you’ll be saying is that you won’t hate me forever. That’s all. That’s all I want. Tell me you’ll think about me sometime without hatin me and everything I was. Tell me you’ll think about me and remember somethin good. If you can’t remember some of the fun times we had before I went crazy with the booze, at least remember that at the end I realized what I’d done and was truly, truly sorry, probably for the first time in my life.”
I held him again, knowing full well that all he would take from my embrace was pity. Forgive him? Pardon him? What would that mean? I would not, would not, be phony. I would not say something I didn’t mean. It would be worse than anything he had ever done to me.
“Oh, God,” I said silently, “only You can forgive this man. It’s not in me.”
Neal stiffened in my arms. He was trying to stop crying. In his rigid shoulders I read the attitude, If she doesn’t want to forgive me, I don’t want her pity either.
I let him pull away. He wiped his eyes with his fingers. He did not appear angry. Just frustrated, as if he knew I couldn’t stand a weak, blubbering man.
I remained close. I wanted to say something soothing, but I would not violate my own conscience. If forgiveness came from my lips, it had to be in my heart and mind.
“You were one good-lookin high schooler,” I whispered, a smile playing at my lips.
Neal backed up and looked at me in surprise. “I was, wasn’t I?” he said, a painful grin forming.
“I was the envy of every girl in that high school when I landed you.”
His face contorted again and the tears came. “Yeah,” he whined, “and look what I did to you. I was so proud to have you as my girl, and I spent the rest of my life ruining yours.” He struggled to compose himself. “When I see what kind of a mother you’ve become, I only wish I’d been able to stay with you. I’ve got nobody but myself to blame.”
He tried to bury his face in his hands again, but I took them in my own and set my face before his. “Neal Woodell, you were one scoundrel of a husband.”
“I know I was.”
I shushed him. “But it’s all behind us now, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Isn’t it?” I repeated.
“Well, I’m sure sorry for it, I know that,” he said.
“I know you are. But you snuffed out every last flicker of love I could have had for you.”
“I’m not even hopin for that,” he said. “I just want you to believe I’m sorry and to forgive me.”
“You have been sorry so many times—”
“No, I wasn’t. I was lyin then. I’m not lyin now.”
His neck and shoulders felt bony. I would not forgive him simply because he was dying. I could forgive him only if I believed him. And even then, as I had prayed, it wasn’t within me to forgive. God would have to do that. Who was I to be an agent of mercy and grace?
God, help me.
Neal’s breath came as if he were exhausted. “Forgive me, Mir,” he whispered. “Believe I’m sorry and forgive me.”
I took a fluttery breath and pulled him closer. “I believe you, Neal. I believe you, and I forgive you.”
43
Neal didn’t stir, didn’t say anything. His breathing was even and deep, as if he had fallen asleep.
I felt an airy lightness, as if I myself had been forgiven. Some dignity had been restored. For years I had been in control o
f this relationship. I had held the key to the lockbox of a debt of guilt. Now I had allowed the guilty to pay me. He may have had no visible response, but I felt as if I could fly.
I gently steered Neal away from me until he was sitting up straight, staring. He seemed spent. He didn’t smile, didn’t thank me, didn’t do anything but sit. Perhaps he was stunned to silence, unable to take it in.
“We need to go soon, Neal,” I said gently, wanting to run and jump and shout. Was I finally, truly free of my albatross of all these years? And had it not really been him all along, but my own reaction to him?
Oh, it had been his fault. There was no question about that. But he was in prison, and though I was divorced and humiliated, still I felt free!
“Would you like to talk to Elgin one more time?”
Neal squinted at me. “Awful tired,” he said. “Yeah, I’d like to see El one more time.” He touched my arm. “One more time is probably it, you know. I’m never gonna see y’all again.”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
Why didn’t I say that’s nonsense, that he would be fine, and that Elgin would make the trip again someday? Because I was past playing games with Neal. What was the point of polite dishonesty at this stage of a man’s life?
Momma stayed with Chaplain Wallace as I went to my father again. “Are you going to be all right, Daddy?”
“Oh, I’ll be all right, El. I’ll be just fine now. Your mom and I got some things straight between us.”
“Did she forgive you?”
“Yes, sir, she sure did.”
“I didn’t know if she ever would, Daddy.”
“She probably shouldn’t have.”
“Why not? You were sorry. I knew that.”
“Sometimes sorry isn’t enough. And I wasn’t as sorry as I am now.”
I wanted to talk baseball or anything but this. But somehow asking my dad about hitting the cutoff man didn’t fit now.
“El, I’ll probably never see you again. I—”
“Don’t say that!”
“Well, it’s true.”
“I’ll come see you again, Daddy. I promise. And I won’t wait till you’re sick again.”
Daddy appeared irritated. “Listen to me, boy. You ain’t never goin to see me alive again. The next time, I’ll be in the ground.”
I began to cry.
“I know that’s no way to tell a boy somethin, but I’ve been a bad enough father as it is by not tellin you the truth. Well, that’s the truth. I’ll fight this thing, but they can’t fool me. It’s already whipped me and I can feel it.”
“Daddy, please! We can’t afford to come back down here soon! If you die, I won’t even be able to come back for your funeral.”
Daddy actually laughed. “What do you want me to do, die today so you’ll be in town for the fixins?”
“That’s not funny.”
“I just wanted to tell you, that’s all, El. Now you can go on and blubber about it, and I guess I can’t blame you. Except I was such a bad dad you shouldn’t miss me too much. But it would make me feel a lot better, almost as good as your mom forgivin me, if I knew you were gonna be a better man than I ever was.”
Should I tell my father that yes, I planned to be? Would that be nice? Or should I tell him that he was a good dad and that I learned a lot from him? At least the last part was true. I said nothing.
“Just tell me you’ll take care of your ma, and—”
“Oh, Daddy!”
“—and that you’ll be honest and not get mixed up with drinkin.”
I nodded and tried to stop crying. “I love you, Daddy.” I hugged his neck.
“I love you too, El, even though I was never good at—”
“I’ve already forgiven you, Daddy, so quit talking about it, okay?”
Daddy sighed. “Okay, El. Okay.”
I pulled away and took a deep breath. “Daddy, I’m going to be the best ballplayer I can be, and I’m going to make the major leagues. I’m going to make you so proud you won’t be able to stand it. When I play in my first big-league game, they’ll let you out to come see me, won’t they?”
“I don’t know. I guess they might.”
“You keep thinking about that, and I’ll keep thinking about it. We’ll make it happen, Daddy. I’ll remember everything you taught me.”
“Especially today?”
“Especially today.”
Daddy rose slowly and put a hand on the table. “Do me a favor, will you, El? If I can’t make it, will you tell ‘em you owe a lot of your baseball success to your dad?”
“I’ll tell them I owe all my success to my dad!”
“No, no, now, that wouldn’t be honest. You know I didn’t give you that skill and that brain. And your mom deserves the credit for all she done for you without a man in the house.”
“I know.”
“So you tell the whole story. I’ll be listenin.”
The next day, though Elgin’s and my train was not scheduled to pull out of Birmingham until early evening, I made the difficult decision to not return and see Neal. Being closer to Hattiesburg, I made a few calls to relatives. My mother told me, “Word we get here is that Neal is dying of AIDS. Don’t you dare touch him.”
“That’s a lie,” I told her. “He’s not well, but it’s alcohol-related.”
“Alcohol? Well, how in the world does he get booze in prison? I mean, I—”
“Momma, I gotta get off the phone, if you don’t mind. My love to everyone.”
I was amazed at my own reaction. I was actually defensive for Neal and insulted by the charge. Such talk was one of the reasons I had moved to Chicago, and I couldn’t wait to get home.
Home. I thought of Chicago as home. I had made the final break. I didn’t let my mother’s comment interfere with my joy.
“I don’t see why we can’t see him again,” Elgin said in our tiny hotel room. “We have time.”
“Someday you’ll understand,” I said.
“You always say that.”
“And I’m always right. Honey, he’d look even worse today. We wore him out. We’ve said all we could say, and he has done the same. Let’s let it be for a while.”
“But he doesn’t think he’s going to live much longer.”
I didn’t respond.
“What do you think, Momma?”
Was it time to be as honest with Elgin as I had been with Neal?
“He looks pretty sick,” I said.
“You don’t think I’ll ever see him again, and you won’t let me see him today?”
“Elgin, sit down.” He sat on the bed. “I don’t think any of the three of us needs the distress of another meeting just now. There’s nothing more to say or do. Let’s let him try to get stronger and see if he can turn this health thing around. Then when we get some more money, we can come back and see him again.”
Elgin lay on his side. “You don’t believe that,” he said. “You know he’s going to die.”
“I don’t know for sure.”
“But you think it.”
“Yes, El, I do.”
“Then why can’t I see him?”
“Remembering the way he was yesterday is going to be difficult enough. Why would you want to risk seeing him even sicker? Anyway, he wants you to remember his last advice.”
“I’ll never forget it.”
“Then let’s leave it at that.”
“Can I write to him?”
“Of course. We can give it to the chaplain when he drives us to the train.”
I wrote a note, repeating what my father had said and renewing my promise to make the majors, to make Daddy proud, and to be sure to give him credit for my success.
“I still want you at my first game,” I reminded him.
44
When our train finally pulled into the Illinois Central station in Chicago two days later, I heard my name.
The page was from Reverend Wallace: “Please phone me collect immediately.”
> I could think of only one reason. I hurried to a phone.
“Neal had an uneventful night and seemed to rally the morning after you were here,” Chaplain Wallace told me. “Late the evening your train left, about midnight, he had a seizure that led to a coughing spell. The seizure and the coughing caused a blood pressure crisis and another heart attack. His kidneys failed by dawn. He was put on dialysis, but he was gone by noon. I’m sorry.”
“Sir, my son gave you a note for him when—”
“I gave it to him and he read it.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“He had it in his hands when I left him that night.”
“Would you do me a favor and tell my son that?”
When Elgin handed the phone back, he buried his head in my chest as I finished up with the chaplain.
“I want you to know, ma’am, that I believe Neal did make his peace with God sometime back. He was never terribly knowledgeable or articulate about his faith, but apparently he had been a churchgoer in his youth. I feel his devotion at the end was genuine.”
“Thank you for telling me that.”
“And how about you, ma’am? Can I be of any assistance to you in that regard?”
I assured him Elgin and I were born-again Christians and in a good church.
“Then you know God cares personally about you. I’m sorry Neal’s life ended this way, but I know he was very thankful he got to see you both again. If you’re unable to get to the funeral, I’ll send you whatever documents are appropriate.”
I could take no more time off, and I couldn’t afford airfare anyway. I thanked Chaplain Wallace and sat to collect myself.
“I have to go to the funeral,” Elgin said.
“Please don’t make this more difficult,” I said. “We cannot and we will not be going. Don’t pretend I have a choice. You saw him, you talked to him, and you both got things said that needed to be said.”
It was a sad trip home from the train station. I let Elgin grieve for the only father he had ever known, for the man Neal Wood-ell might have been, for the ballplayer he could have been. He remembered special times when it was just him and his dad, throwing, hitting, pitching, fielding, running, talking, listening, learning.
The Youngest Hero Page 23
