I gave Dad a wood Klondike chair I had made over several evenings at Law’s house. I’d had to sneak Dad’s band saw out of the garage, but he hadn’t used the thing in ages, or as Grandpa Collins used to say, “Since Moby Dick was a minnow.” Josh bought him a nice pen-and-pencil set. I could imagine where he got the money.
Christmas afternoon we drove to Granny Walls in Houston for the family’s traditional Christmas dinner. We sang carols, and Dad read the Christmas story from the book of Luke in the Bible. Every year, after the Nelson’s Christmas dinner, my mom would sit down at the piano, and the house would fall quiet. She would strike a single note, and sing a quiet note to get the right pitch. She would start low and slow, singing without the piano at first. Mom would sing “Oh, Holy Night.” By the time she was done, everyone in the house would be sniffing and dabbing their eyes with tissue. It was magical.
Without Mom to sing, I assumed we would skip sitting in the living room around the piano, but Aunt Gina, who flew in from Boston, scooted out the bench and made a big production of pulling herself up to the piano and riffling through the sheet music. Then she banged out a sort of fanfare, and began trying to sing “Oh, Holy Night.” She was awful, and I hated her for trying. “Oh, Holy Night” was Mom’s Christmas song. No one was supposed to sing that song on Christmas but her, and Dad just sat there like nothing was wrong. I felt a crazy combination of extreme sadness and intense anger coming on.
I bolted from my chair and headed for the door.
Uncle David grabbed my arm to stop me, but Aunt Sue laid her hand on his, and in a soft voice said, “Just let him go, Dave. Please.”
I was a little surprised my dad didn’t follow, not to see if I was all right, but to scold me for embarrassing him, but with each passing day, my steady as a rock Dad seemed to wither into a weaker and weaker version of himself.
I hung out behind Grandma’s storage shed for half an hour or so. I sat on a pile of scrap wood and steamed. I cursed the world and everything in it. I moved to the front porch and spent the rest of the afternoon playing Monopoly with two of my younger cousins, Teddy and Andrew. Worst Christmas ever.
»»•««
We made it back to Branard by eight o’clock Christmas night. The house was eerily quiet: Dad not talking to Josh, because he was mad at him, Josh not talking to anyone, because he was mad at the world, and me not talking because I was ashamed I hadn’t manned up and taken my medicine over the school field house break-in.
I decided next year, I’d find an excuse to not go to Granny’s for Christmas. Maybe I’d cut a few fingers off with Dad’s table saw. It would be less painful. I found the whole family gathering idea depressing. And depression was a condition with which I had become quite familiar.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Life after the holidays continued along the same path as before. My football teammates continued to sneer and call me names behind my back. Loud enough for me to hear but disguised enough that I could not identify the culprit. When there was more than one of them, they continued to bump, shove, and jostle me in the halls. Their act was getting old, and my fuse was burning shorter by the day.
As I was getting dressed out for basketball practice on the third day after the holiday break, Coach Newcomb called me into his office.
Coach closed the door and lit right in. “You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you, Nelson?”
“Smart? No, sir. I guess I’m about average, but I did get an A in music appreciation in the fourth grade.” A smart-mouth wisecrack probably wasn’t the best tack, but I really didn’t care.
“You watch your mouth, young man. Don’t you think for a minute I don’t really know what happened out at the field house.” Coach sounded cocksure, as if he had proof or something.
I stopped short of saying something stupid like, “Big stinking deal, you caught me, Sherlock.” Instead, I waited, hoping he’d explain.
“It takes the lowest form of lowlife to send your little brother to do your dirty work for you.” The coach leaned against the wall near the door and folded his arms. He was literally looking down his nose at me.
I wanted to laugh in his face, but I was already in enough trouble.
After another few seconds, the coach said, “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Come on, Nelson. I know you put him up to it. Why won’t you just admit it?”
I didn’t answer Coach’s accusation. Instead I turned, opened the door, and walked out. I was nearing my flashpoint, and I pitied the person standing in front of me when I did explode.
“You don’t deserve all this grief, Todd,” a low voice whispered from over my shoulder. “After everything that has been dumped onto you, who could blame you if you went off the deep end and pulled off some huge unparalleled payback, something that would shock and devastate this whole sick little one-horse town.”
The voice was familiar. Deep, dark, raspy, and cold. I twisted toward the voice, but as always, I caught no more than a shadowy half-glimpse of my ever-persistent heckler. I wondered what Pastor Brandon would make of my invisible evil companion.
A note from the office called me out of fifth period US government. A summons from Assistant Principal Young.
Mr. Young met me at his office door. He was the bearer of more good news. He said, “Mr. Ellis, Branard High School’s security officer, has just informed me that your truck has no valid parking permit, nor does it have an up-to-date state vehicle inspection sticker.”
I had replaced the front windshield and covered the passenger side broken window with a clear piece of plastic I cut from a discarded display cabinet I found in the trash. I reinforced the driver’s-side window with packing tape.
Mr. Young snatched a BISD parking policies pamphlet from his shirt pocket and handed it to me. “You cannot bring that vehicle onto school property again without the proper stickers.”
I tried to explain how both my valid inspection sticker and current parking permit were destroyed by vandals. I told him, “You can’t hold me responsible for what some other students did.”
Mr. Young jumped onto my statement with both feet.
“Vandals from this school?” He didn’t give me a chance to respond before saying, “And I suppose you have proof to back up these wild accusations.”
I couldn’t hold my tongue. I blurted out, “Wild accusations? How can you imply that my accusations are wild? Are you blind to what’s been going on?” I didn’t give him a chance to respond. “And I suppose you haven’t bothered looking into the beating I got right here on school property. Do you think I put myself in the hospital emergency room just so I could make wild accusations?” I was yelling at an assistant principal with an office full of witnesses just outside the half-closed door. I knew I had taken my tirade too far. Way too far.
My outbursts, the earlier one with Coach Newcomb and the one with Mr. Young, landed me a one-week in-school suspension from Principal Welch and the confiscation of my truck keys by my highly irate dad. The first emotion of any kind I had seen from him in weeks, maybe months.
“Don’t I have enough problems, Todd? Here I am, trying to deal with the loss of your mother, battling to keep my job, and tending to this ugly business with your brother. And what do you do? Try to help? No. Do you pitch in and do your part? Again, no.” Dad actually raised his voice, a definite rarity. One day Dad was all solemn and quiet, and then growling and yelling the next. He was hard to figure.
He continued, “You don’t help. You make things even worse.” He was on a roll. “You seem to think it’s acceptable to embarrass me, to destroy the good name of Nelson entirely.” He took a breath and fired another salvo. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you think this business with Josh has done my reputation enough harm?”
I didn’t bother trying to defend myself or to apologize. Dad wasn’t in the mood for either. But then, neither was I.
I was grounded, in two ways. Not only was I grounded from driving my wreck of a truck. Law wasn’
t allowed to come over or to drive me anywhere either. I had joined my little brother under house arrest.
Being the big-hearted guy he was, Law tried to talk to my dad, but as Law described it, “Your old man handed me my head and made me thank him for the privilege.” He cracked an odd smile and added, “I never knew your dad could be such a hard case.”
I did. To the old Dad, everything was black or white, right or wrong. Do the crime—do the time. You would expect a guy who preached about forgiveness so much would be inclined to dish out a spoonful or two to his own family. Trust me. If that’s what you expected, you’d be sorely disappointed. At least Dad was showing a little of his old self again.
Sunday, Dad announced in church that the board had called for an emergency membership meeting for Wednesday week. I knew it took at least four of the seven elected church deacons to call for a special meeting. I guess the board was lined up against him and calling for a vote of confidence.
Vote of confidence? Now there’s a joke of a label if I ever heard one. They should call it a vote of no-confidence, because anything less than a two-thirds majority positive vote from the membership, and Dad would be out on his ear. The idea would have been a ridiculous prospect a few short weeks ago. Now it loomed as a definite possibility.
At school on Monday, Law and I discussed Dad’s situation.
Law said, “I’d think you’d be glad for your dad to have to move to another church in another town.” He didn’t say anything about the fact that we couldn’t be best buds anymore, but that was Law. He was a little quick to go off without thinking sometimes, but then he’d come back with something thoroughly insightful. A good guy and a lot smarter than most people gave him credit for.
»»•««
The next Saturday, Dad drove me to Brandon Lupo’s NRG meeting. I guess church functions weren’t part of my grounding. I noticed that a few of my teammates from school were there, but maybe not so surprisingly, they didn’t treat me any better than any of the other guys on the team did. I thought Christian kids were supposed to be different, but Greg Worski and the Stockman brothers sure weren’t.
Halfway through the meeting, Brandon asked us to break out into groups of four or five. Each group was supposed to come up with one question to ask Pastor Griffin, River of Hope’s senior pastor. Brandon said that next week Pastor Griffin would come to our meeting and answer them. I could never see my dad doing something like that. Come to think about it, he never did anything with the teens in our church. I guess my dad didn’t connect well with the younger generation, but lately, neither did I.
Each break-out group was supposed to put their chairs in a circle and discuss what question they wanted to ask, but instead of meeting with my group, I slipped outside. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about church stuff.
Outside, I found the kid’s playground. Its gate was locked, but I hopped the fence and found a swing set in the shadows. The night was cool, in the mid-fifties. As long as I kept my hands in the pockets, the Heritage Park High jacket I wore was enough to keep me warm.
I settled into the sixteen-inch-wide plastic swing seat, trying not to think. Everyone tries it and always comes to the same conclusion. It’s impossible to think of nothing. As I sat, a crazy thought crossed my mind. If I were a druggy or a drunk, I could get high and forget all the garbage going on in my life. The trouble with drugs and booze is, once you’ve sobered up, whatever you got high to avoid was still there. No better and quite possibly a lot worse.
Pastors, counselors, and shrinks try to find the root problem and fix it for you. The problem in my case couldn’t be fixed. God hated me. How could they fix that?
“Todd,” came a voice from somewhere in the shadows, but it didn’t sound like my usual menace. Brandon stepped into the moonlight.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. I didn’t think my idea was all that lame.”
“No, it was a cool idea. I liked that Pastor Griffin was willing to do this. He must be an okay guy.”
“He is an okay guy.”
“My dad would never do anything like this.”
“Maybe he would if he had a youth pastor to suggest it.”
“You don’t know my dad. He’s sort of…what do you call it? Autocratic?” Last Wednesday’s Vocabulary Word for the Day.
Brandon asked again, “What are you doing out here, Todd?” He put an emphasis on the doing.
“I wanted to be alone. With everything that’s going on, I’m not feeling very sociable.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Nothing,” I told him. “Nothing will help.”
Brandon asked about Josh’s meeting with the Juvenile Court liaison.
I told him, “It hasn’t happened yet. They set it for ten o’clock next Thursday morning. Dad still refuses to hire a lawyer. What do you think will happen to Josh if this goes to criminal court and they find him guilty?” I knew Brandon had a lot of experience with kids in trouble.
“I’m not sure. Probation, probably, since this is his only offense.” It was a good thing they didn’t know about his urban scavenger fiasco. “A lot will depend on the county child welfare agency’s advocate and their report. Don’t worry, Todd, and tell Josh and your dad I’ll come with him to the meeting.” Brandon called it “a meeting.” Officer Davis called it a prehearing inquiry, and Dad called it an embarrassing disaster.
Whatever you call it, it was giving me an ulcer the size of an oil tanker.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The woman who rang the doorbell Tuesday morning was barely five feet tall but built like a wine barrel. She introduced herself as Ms. Greta Vondenhoff. The name fit. She wore a navy-blue polyester blazer and a gray, straight, calf-length skirt she had probably bought when Jimmy Carter was president.
As Dad, Josh, and I assumed an uneasy attention formation in front of her, she asked, “Is this the child?”
“I’m not a child,” Josh blurted. “I’m almost thirteen.”
Dad gave Josh an elbow nudge as the woman snorted and curtly asked Dad, “Are you going to invite me in?”
Dad, nodded and apologized. He suggested she sit in Mom’s favorite overstuffed armchair.
“I would be more comfortable at that table over there.” She pointed her soft-sided briefcase to the dining area.
At the table, Dad sat directly across from Ms. Vondenhoff with Josh and me at either end. A wave of dread washed over me. Brandon had said someone would come to evaluate Josh’s home environment. You never know about bureaucrats and politicians. Uncle Mike used to say they all have biases and agendas contrary to the public’s interest. I hoped that wasn’t the case.
Josh appeared far less nervous than I did, and he was the one facing charges.
Ms. Vondenhoff cleared her throat and pulled three thick files from her case and laid them on the table. She fussed with the papers, making sure they were stacked perfectly straight and square. She read from the text preprinted on the top folder. “On behalf of Joshua Lee Nelson, minor, and at the request of Ed Harte, Chairman of the County Juvenile Justice Authority, the Department of Family Welfare will observe, investigate, and report its findings and will make recommendations to the Juvenile Court Administrator.”
She looked up from the file and said, “They want to be sure we do what is in the best interest of the child and public welfare, all within the bounds of federal, state, and local statutes, of course.”
Josh was the first to respond. He looked to Dad and asked, “What does that mean?”
Ms. Vondenhoff leaned forward and said, “I will explain.” She spoke with the slightest hint of a German accent, and her tone oozed condescension. “Jacob, it means…”
“My name’s Joshua,” Josh interrupted. “Josh for short.”
Ms. Vondenhoff didn’t apologize. Instead, she gave Josh a look that said, “Watch it, kid, or I’ll recommend they send you to the electric chair.”
She smoothed do
wn her blazer’s lapels and said, “It means, young man, I am here to see what kind of home life and family support you have, and make a recommendation as to whether this is the best place for you.”
“As opposed to what?” Dad asked.
Ms. Vondenhoff rolled her eyes and said, “We could recommend a foster home, juvenile detention, or a mental healthcare facility. Whatever is in the best interest of the chil—er, subject.”
A foster home? Are you kidding me? Dad is a preacher, for goodness’ sake.
“Now, if you will let me get on with my evaluation.” She pulled a yellow legal pad from her briefcase and jotted something down.
Dad slumped his shoulders and stared at his hands. Utterly defeated—something I’d never seen before.
Vondenhoff carefully defined “quality of life” and “nourishing environment.”
I couldn’t help but stare at her midsection where two brass buttons strained to hold her blazer closed. The white fabric of her Oxford shirt bulged out in tight tufts between the taut buttons of her navy-blue coat. The threads that held the buttons on looked as though they could give way at any moment.
If one of those babies snapped, somebody was going to lose an eye.
She asked to see Josh’s latest report card. Dad said, “I sign them and he has to take them back to school, but I can access them online for you, if you would like.”
She made another note and said she would check with the school. “What are your work hours, Reverend Nelson? How much time do you spend at home with Josh?”
Dad said, “I haven’t been able to spend as much time with the boys as I would like. I’ve had to attend a lot of late night meetings lately, but I’m here as much as possible.”
“And how much time is that? Exactly.”
“I’m here to get the boys off to school in the mornings and home for supper most nights.” He paused to sign. “I have to admit though, for the last few weeks, I’ve had to go back out around six and not get home until around ten or ten thirty.”
Half the Distance Page 18
