by Kyp Harness
Tim was emboldened to tell Eric of his dilemma with Sherrie. Eric listened with rapt concentration, nodding his head and interjecting with empathetic hmms and grunts.
“Well, it seems to me that this Bruce fellow, whatever his name is, is on the way out and doesn’t know it yet,” Eric pronounced after due consideration. “I mean you talk about the connection you guys have, and wow, if half of what you say is true, then it sounds like God really wants you two guys to be together! I mean, God’s really talking to you here!”
Eric pulled his car into Tim’s driveway and they sat talking for a while in the night as the lights of the cars streamed by out on the road. “It sounds like God’s got a lot to say to Sherrie, here, in particular,” Eric continued, eyebrows arching with significance from behind his spectacles. “It sounds like He’s telling her to wake up and smell the coffee! Are you talking to God about this?” asked Tim quietly. “Are you praying to Him about this every night?”
Tim answered that he was.
“Then that’s all you can do,” Eric intoned solemnly, his eyes glowing darkly in the dimness as he stared at Tim intently. The silver cross around his neck shone in the light from his dashboard. “You know that God only gives three answers: Yes, No, or Not right now.”
Tim was tempted to ask Eric to have his mother pray for him but thought better of it. Eric threw his arms open wide and the two boys embraced each other before Tim got out of the car and strode into his house.
Tim often wondered what God intended for Sherrie and himself. It had gotten to the point where his devotion to her had become a stale joke to disinterested observers. Tim had noted Sherrie’s locker-mate Mike looking skeptically at him when he would wait for her by her locker. One morning, a classmate jokingly put his arm briefly around Sherrie when they were fooling around in the hall. “Hey, I’m getting a little bit possessive, here!” Tim said lightly.
“Oh, come on, Tim,” remarked the classmate, rolling his eyes. “Give us a break!”
Tim felt humiliated by the boy’s scorn. His cheeks felt as though they were on fire with shame. But at the same time, he felt a fierce pride at being humiliated for his love for Sherrie. He was glad to be a fool for her. It was a self-evident fact to him that she was the most beautiful and desirable girl in the world, as well as having the most wonderful personality. The real question, as he saw it, was why weren’t others falling over themselves to be near her as he was? Obviously their sensibilities weren’t as finely honed as his, he decided.
Tim’s unrest wasn’t eased by the poems Sherrie suddenly began bringing to school, saying that someone had mailed them to her anonymously. Tim looked at the poems and recognized that they were by e.e. cummings, though the real author had not been credited. He also saw that they had been written with pen and ink in a painstaking calligraphic style that he had seen in Eric’s notebook during Charitas planning sessions. “I think these are from Eric Dunphy,” he said to Sherrie.
“Why would he be sending me poems?” Sherrie asked.
As Eric was drove Tim home after the next planning meeting, Tim asked him about the poems.
“What type of poems were they?” Eric asked.
“They didn’t credit the author, but they’re e.e. cummings poems,” Tim said.
“Ah! e.e. cummings!” Eric noted, smiling enigmatically.
“You were hoping to pass them off as your own?” Tim asked.
“Now, now,” Eric chuckled as he drove through the early evening, “don’t go thinking I have some sort of thing for Sherrie simply because I’ve sent her a few poems. I’ve sent poems to quite a few girls, Tim, and it’s simply as a tribute to them and their femininity and their beauty that I do it… rather like giving them flowers.”
“A person usually doesn’t give flowers to a girl unless he has some idea about getting together with her,” Tim reasoned.
“Well, Tim, in olden days, in the days of chivalry, gentlemen often gave flowers to women in pure tribute to their beauty, without any other designs in mind,” Eric explained, turning to face him as they pulled in the driveway. “I consider myself a gentleman of that old school, offering verse and flowers to rare specimens of womankind.” Eric grinned proudly at Tim, his protruding jaw and the visor of his cap forming a concavity between them in which the rest of his face reposed. “The thing is,” he said, laying his hand on Tim’s shoulder, “is have you been continuing to pray to God about Sherrie?”
“Yeah,” Tim said.
“Well then you have nothing to worry about,” Eric assured. “If God wants you and Sherrie to be together, then there’s nothing He won’t do to make it happen. Sometimes you just have to let go and let God.”
At the next meeting Tim noticed Eric and Sherrie talking animatedly in a corner. Eric was gesticulating, twisting his long, thin body as he told a story, and Sherrie was laughing. Tim thought he saw the same glitter of surprised delight that he had seen in her eyes on the bus the first time she and Tim had talked, and which he saw more rarely now. He felt his heartbeat accelerate and his throat tighten. It was one thing that she hadn’t felt moved enough to leave her boyfriend for him, but it was another for her to be so obviously impressed by someone like Eric Dunphy, whom he tolerated only for the rides home. Later, Tim approached Sherrie. “You were talking a lot to Eric,” he remarked.
“Yeah,” said Sherrie, chuckling at the memory of the encounter. “Funny guy,” she said. “Strange guy.”
“Was he telling you about his mom’s connection to God?” Tim asked. “Or was he telling you about his harem of Charitas girls? Or maybe he was passing off more e.e. cummings poems as his own?” He spoke these last words in a rush and betrayed himself.
The amusement disappeared from Sherrie’s eyes and she frowned. “Can I be blunt?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I think the reason you don’t like me talking to Eric is because you’re jealous,” she stated, then turned on her heel to join the others.
It was time for the prayer that concluded each planning meeting. As Co-Dad led the group, they prayed for help in the planning and for a successful weekend. Tim looked around at all the bowed heads, and at Eric praying with his palms outstretched before him, and he felt a helpless, irresolute anger. It seemed as though everyone else was calm, reasonable and ready to surrender all to God. It was only he who was not at rest, he who felt as though he was frantically coming apart at the seams. They were all at one in their spirituality and he did not belong here just as he did not belong anywhere. For a moment he hated their placidity, their self-righteousness. He hated Eric Dunphy, he hated Sherrie and he hated himself. But then he felt ashamed of his bitterness and dark thoughts, and bowed his head and closed his eyes tighter, trying to allow Co-Dad’s lulling Scottish brogue to take him down the river of loving surrender and acceptance.
8. Spring
Russ returned to school one morning as though nothing had happened. He and his mother had to have a meeting with the principal in order to arrange a way for him to catch up on what he had missed. He walked through the halls with a new diligence, carrying his binder under his arm. Along with his new attitude, Russ had an announcement to make to his friends. “To the great happiness of my mother—and yourselves as well, I’m sure—I’ve decided to attend Charitas.”
Tim and Sherrie embraced each other in the school hall, Sherrie leaping up and down with happiness. Tim was pleased that Russ had put aside his skepticism to take a chance with Charitas. “Well,” said Russ, “I thought if it had such a good impact on you, there must be something to it.”
As the weekend approached, however, Tim noticed another name on the list of attendees at one of the planning meetings: Bruce Ferguson.
“It makes sense, after all,” Eric Dunphy observed on one of their drives home. “I mean, if she’s still going out with the guy, then she’d want him to experience something that’s been important to her.”
&
nbsp; “Yeah,” said Tim, “but that just means their relationship isn’t falling off, that she wants to share this with him.”
“Hmm,” Eric meditated, studying the road before him. “There’s a chance, too, though,” he speculated, “that this is sort of a test for old Bruce—to see if he’s capable of opening his heart to God and letting Him come in. What is it that this Bruce fellow does?” Eric asked. “Does he go to school?”
“No, he’s older… twenty or something,” Tim muttered. He didn’t like talking about Sherrie’s boyfriend. “He works at Radio Shack at the mall.”
“Radio Shack!” Eric repeated. “Doesn’t sound too promising, does it? Of course, we can never know about these things, but really, this might work out to your advantage. We’ll see if old Bruce is up to the challenge of Charitas. Maybe this is the last chance she’s giving him before she throws him over for you!”
“You think so?” Tim asked despairingly.
“Well, I don’t know, of course,” Eric admitted. “But one thing I do know is that I wouldn’t put it past her to arrange such a test. The female can be a very calculating species, Tim,” Eric chuckled, raising his forefinger. “She has her ways of choosing who she’ll pair off with. Make no mistake: it’s the female who decides, every time! She points her finger and chooses and we’re done for! We don’t have any say in it at all!
“But who can say? We really can’t say at all,” Eric mused, looking out poetically at the stars shining over the shadowed fields they passed. “There is a reason God is bringing you all together—perhaps to reach a new understanding. Undoubtedly, what He has planned is greater than anything you or I could imagine.”
Tim didn’t want God to bring him and Bruce Ferguson together. Tim wanted God to banish Bruce Ferguson from the earth so that he could be together with Sherrie. As much as he believed in the revelation that had come to him through Charitas, he was not prepared to accept that one he regarded as his arch-enemy was a brother of Charitas love. He regarded Bruce Ferguson, and somehow needed to regard him, as a malevolent force with whom there could be no truce, not even one imposed by Jesus Christ.
As the weekend approached, the past Charitas alumni were asked to write “friend letters” to be received by the new attendees. Tim wrote to Russ, calling him his best friend, saying that he hoped the weekend would be the miracle for him that it had been for himself. He praised Russ’s intelligence and talent, and said he hoped the experience would deepen their friendship, a friendship he said he expected would last for the rest of their lives. Tim wrote Bruce Ferguson as well, but instead of a letter he composed a poem and didn’t sign it:
A challenge is offered, you step from the wings,
From a life and a world of the past.
Suddenly you see and you feel many things.
Has the true way of love come at last?
A wondrous flower you hold in your hand.
Do you have what it takes, do you know
How to feed it and water it, do you understand
All it needs to survive and to grow?
A new sun is rising, a new day is here.
Can you rise and be born again too?
Out of the past and its boredom and fear,
The only real answer and question is you.
Tim enjoyed the manner in which the last line put it to the reader with a sudden jab. He imagined Bruce Ferguson reading it, his eyes following the words along to the end, when the challenging tone would cause his thick eyebrows to furrow, and a frown would form beneath his large black moustache. He gave it to Eric to read, who handed it back to him, nodding his head and raising his eyebrows above his spectacles. “Interesting,” he said.
The weekend came and Tim helped out on the main floor of the church while the retreat went on below. He heard the singing and remembered his own experience. With the other Charitas alumni, he helped prepare meals and got various activities ready for the attendees. He waited with apprehension as the weekend came to its end. He heard the strains of Bette Midler singing “The Rose” in the gymnasium. He knew that the time had come when the attendees were emerging to find their parents gathered there. He stood outside the doors with Sherrie and heard the emotional reunions the teenagers were having with their parents.
Then the doors were opened to them, and Sherrie sprinted ahead as Tim peered into the dim room. He saw Russ bending to embrace his mother, then turning toward Tim. Russ started walking, his eyes gleaming, and he broke into a jog as he came nearer across the gym floor. Tim rushed to him, and for the first time the two boys embraced, the candles in the room throwing black and red shadows all around them, Russ throwing his arms around Tim and squeezing him tightly. “Thank you,” Russ whispered in Tim’s ear.
Tim looked across the gym, and saw Sherrie coming into Bruce Ferguson’s embrace. Looking almost twice her height, Bruce bent to her, his large dark eyes glowing happily in the shadows, his bright teeth flashing beneath his black moustache. As much as Tim was able to see Sherrie’s face, it seemed that she was blissfully smiling, her eyes closed. He quickly averted his eyes from the sight of their hug, as though he feared he might turn to stone from looking at it. He closed his eyes as Russ hugged him, feeling the strange sensation of Russ’s thin body against his.
“Would you believe it? I’ve got a job!” Eric Dunphy was saying. “At the Shell station on Oxnard! Mom prayed for me to get a job, and two days later what happens? We stop to get gas on the way back from church and the guy’s complaining that he lost his employee the day before and he had to go through the hassle of getting a new one. Well! Talk about getting it on a silver platter with a bow on it!” Eric drove his small car along the road that followed the river south of the city. Beside him, Sherrie sat in the passenger seat and Russ and Tim sat in the back. The four teenagers had gotten together once before since the latest Charitas weekend, both times at Eric’s invitation. He was glad to pick up his friends and take them for rides along the river.
“But that’s the way it is,” Eric said, “she merely has to pray for it, and God complies. I don’t know if that’s called a gift or what.”
Tim looked over to see that Russ’s brow was creased as he frowned with distaste. Russ had been affected by the retreat less than Tim, but believed the cumulative effect to be good and worthwhile. Like Tim, Russ had been changed by the weekend. He was calmer now, less close to hysteria and the slightest bit more forgiving of his fellow humans.
“But do you really think that God reached forth His hand past all the starving children, all the war-torn countries, and arranged for you to get a job at a gas station, simply because your mom prayed for it?” Russ asked Eric.
From the front seat Eric darted his head back for a moment in Russ’s direction. “Hmm!” said Eric. “Interesting question!”
Outside, the sun was shining brightly and most of the snow had melted away. The river was a band of flowing blue, and across the water were the docks and factories of America. They had driven past the oil refineries and chemical plants and were now following the river down in the direction of the town where Eric lived.
“It’s that whole question of whether we believe in an interventionist or non-interventionist God,” Russ postulated. “Whether we think that God takes an active hand in our lives or not…”
“Well, I think obviously that God takes an active hand in our lives!” Eric exclaimed. “I mean, I’ve seen it too many times to doubt it!”
“Does God give you what you want when you pray to Him?” Russ asked.
“Well, no. Not all the time, anyway,” Eric chuckled. “But if you don’t think God takes an active hand in your life, what is it that you pray for?” he asked, twisting his neck around to glance at Russ.
“I’m not sure that we should be praying for things,” Russ noted. “I’m not sure if we should be giving God a shopping list. I’m wondering if we shouldn’t pray to connect ourselves with Him, to ask Him what He wants us to do—instead of telling Him what to do—and to gather strength
and faith to live by His word as we know it from the Bible.”
“Mm-hmm! That’s right!” Eric agreed, lightly tapping his fist on the steering wheel. “You know, it’s funny,” he said, addressing Sherrie beside him, “I have Catholic friends, and this whole business of being saved simply by one’s faith in Jesus alone is nutty to them. They believe one also must perform good works. But of course we say, ‘Not by works alone!’ Then there are the Pentecostals and the Anglicans—all these different types and ways of worshipping God. It can make a person loony at times!” He smiled whimsically over at her, his eyes twinkling.
“Yeah, I wonder what people think who don’t know Christianity all that well,” Sherrie responded. “It’s a religion, but it’s like there’s all these other religions inside it.”
“Hmm! Interesting!” Eric said. “Well, all I know is that I got a new job at a gas station!” he smiled, looking over at Sherrie. “And I’m quite content to believe that the strength of my mother’s faith got that job for me. You know, I’ve really been meditating on the idea that if you believe something is real, it’s real for you,” he continued. “Sort of like when Jesus said that if you had faith the size of a mustard seed you could move mountains. I’m sure you believe in that,” he said to Russ, looking at him in the rear-view mirror.
Eric pulled the car into one of the parks that lined the river. There was a fierce, cold wind as they got out. They walked across the grass and sat beneath a tree. “I don’t know how much more of this guy I can take,” Russ whispered to Tim.
No sooner had they sat down than Eric exclaimed, “Well! Who’s up for a walk along the river?” None of the others wanted to move. Eric leapt to his feet and strode off with long ostentatious strides. The three friends sat in silence for a while after Eric left.
“Is he always like this?” Russ eventually remarked.
