by John Lynch
“Well, at least you haven’t lost your keen sense of the obvious.” He pats my knee playfully.
“Andy, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m really sorry. I haven’t called you or returned your calls or e-mails. But I really need to talk to you.”
Before answering, Andy blows on his coffee a long time. “Uh-huh. Well, you see, I think I’m gonna have to say no to that.”
“What?” I nearly choke on the sip I’ve just taken.
“I’ve got some boats to clean, and I think maybe I’m not the best person to walk this through with you.”
“Are you kidding me?” I say. “I think you’re the only person who can walk this through with me.”
“Well, see, that’s gonna be a problem.” He is still blowing on his coffee, staring straight ahead.
I turn slightly toward him. “Andy, when I didn’t get back to you, I really messed up, didn’t I?”
Andy stands up and walks to the rail overlooking the boats and the harbor. He is turned away from me as he speaks.
“I was keeping up with you through your dad long before we met at Fenton’s. I’ve cared about you for some time now. I’d rehearsed a dozen times what I’d say if we ever got the chance to talk. Many times I wanted to introduce myself to you here at the marina, but the time was never right. So when I finally got the chance to be in your life, maybe it was too important to me that you’d let me in. I’ve thought a lot about that these last few weeks.”
I sit, staring at him, unable to think of something appropriate to say. Eventually I break the silence.
“I don’t know about any of that, Andy. I just know this isn’t about you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all been about me. Hank warned me I would do this very thing. That I would leave you, reject you. I don’t think you can know how much I hate admitting he was right, but he was. He saw where I was headed.”
I stand up and face him. I can’t look him in the eye for long, so I begin pacing. I’m really scared. My hands are sweating. I start trying to say words, but nothing comes. Finally, I catch my breath and mumble more than speak, still not able to look at him directly.
“I don’t know what to say, Andy. I’m so sorry. This was all new to me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I don’t let people in like this. I never have. It got too close. So I ran. I run a lot.”
I stop and look at him again until he is looking into my eyes.
“I know this sounds weak, but I do need you, Andy. I’m in a lot of trouble. I hurt Lindsey. I really screwed up again. I don’t know where to go if you won’t talk to me.”
He peers back at me, his face expressionless.
“Andy, are you gonna say something, or are you gonna just let me stew here?”
Still nothing. I catch a glance from him, just long enough to give a hint of a smile.
“Look, Andy,” I say in a voice that sounds far more serious than I expected it to. “I’m not leaving. So you’ve got a choice. It’s not going to look good to your boss if some homeless guy keeps moping around the marina. And I will mope. I’ll make a scene and throw your name around like confetti. I didn’t get where I am by being passive.”
I take a couple of steps toward him. “Look, I’ll help you clean boats. I don’t think anyone will notice.”
He sips his coffee and takes a long look at my clothing. He smiles.
“Well, you would blend in. In that outfit, you should probably start with the bilge pumps.”
I smile. “I deserve that.”
“You do.” He sighs. “Let’s get to work.”
He turns and heads down the walkway without another word, and I follow.
Over the next several hours, Andy and I wash down boats together. He familiarizes me with the bilge pump on several of them. I tell him everything that has just happened, leaving nothing out, including my pleading with God and my realizations of how I’ve hurt my wife.
When we finish, we climb to the deck of the boat we’ve just finished. He looks out at the harbor for a while before speaking.
“Let me see if I’ve got this right,” Andy says, stroking his chin. “You said these words to your wife: ‘You shut up! I’ve done everything right. And you’ve been seeing some shrink guy while I’m living in a hotel.’ Then you felt that wasn’t enough and added, ‘This is my house. You can live with your boyfriend!’ And then you ran out the door. Do I have that right?”
It sounds really awful coming out of his mouth. “Yeah. Not exactly in that order, but, yeah… .”
“Whooeee. And I’m the one checking out boats while you’re getting profiled in the Wall Street Journal? Where’s the justice in that universe?”
I shake my head. “I guess I deserve that too, don’t I?”
“Yes, you do.”
He pulls a cigar out of his shirt pocket, cuts off the end, and lights it. Then he looks at me and says, “Well, Steven, looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Andy replies, “but I haven’t really done much thus far to address the issues you’ve confided to me.”
“Oh, it’s crossed my mind on occasion,” I say.
“Would you like to know why?”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
He blows out a puff of smoke. “You weren’t ready. And now, well, now you are.”
“Let me get this right. I cause my wife to scream and call the police, and that makes me ready?”
He tilts his head a little. “Not exactly. The rage, damage, and remorse cycle—you’ve been there before.”
“Yeah.” I chuckle weakly. “A few times.”
“And in the past, when the anger cooled down, you were always sad for the things you’d done. But today, humility has entered the picture. I’m nearly certain of it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Two ways.” He places the cigar in his mouth and holds up two fingers. “Today, for the first time, you’re owning up to something deeper than your behavior.”
I’m listening closely, waiting for a punch line.
“Did you catch that? That’s huge. It’s like two-thirds of the pie right there. You’re owning the fact that you try to control others with your anger. This isn’t just about fixing your anger. This is about who you are, why you do what you do. The difference couldn’t be bigger.”
I raise my hand. “Could you repeat that last sentence, the one about controlling others?”
“You’re owning the consent you give yourself to control others with your anger.”
“That’s what I thought you said… and you’re saying that’s a big deal.”
He nods. “Second way I know is that today you’re trusting me with you. Up until now you were just negotiating whether you would trust me with your anger. That’s playing with house money. It doesn’t cost you much. And it sure isn’t humility. Humility is trusting God and others with you—your whole person. If I’m not mistaken, that’s what you’re doing here. You’re giving me access to you.”
He takes out his cigar and points at my chest, smiling. Finally, he gets up and walks right up next to me. Like Cynthia, he’s standing very close. Looking deeply into my eyes he says, “My young friend, we’ve finally shown up at the right address at the right time. This moment couldn’t be rushed, coerced, or manipulated. We couldn’t have found a shortcut to this moment. But now we’re ready to play for real money.
“This is a sacred moment, my friend. With your permission, I have the privilege of protecting you.”
I get up and pace the deck.
“I don’t get it. You were just waiting for me to break down? Why didn’t we just dive in and get to the root of my anger? Maybe I wouldn’t have blown it again.”
“Well, first of all, we were diving in. We were working at building a relationship where you could trust me. And all along you were learning about what you were missing in your own world. And until you figured that out and knew you could trust me
, it wouldn’t have worked. Like I said before, I could’ve given you answers, but you needed a foundation first. A foundation of grace.”
We’re standing side by side and he’s looking at me, like, I don’t know. Like he’s looking for something behind my eyes. I can’t remember anyone in my life talking like this to me. It feels good.
“But to fully answer your question,” he says, turning back toward the ocean, “that’ll demand some deeper explanation. Has the coffee kicked in?”
I shake my head back and forth, like a man trying to shake off drunkenness. “I hope so.”
“Just sit back and let the old sea captain work.”
I settle onto a bench and set my half-empty cup next to me.
“You heard of shame?”
“Shame,” I repeat.
He nods. “Everyone eventually stumbles into the ugly experience called shame.” He starts walking back and forth, working the deck like it belongs to him. “It’s like in that dream where you’re walking around naked. You know what I mean?”
“I hate that dream,” I say.
“It’s the worst. Maybe not as bad as the clown chasing me with a hatchet, but pretty close. You know that one? Or where you’re trying to run but your feet won’t move?”
“You’re interrupting yourself.”
“Right. So we experience shame hundreds of times before we reach adulthood. Maybe you get humiliated at a school dance. Maybe a coach rips you apart in front of your PE class. Or, you walk into a party and find your girlfriend making out with some guy from another school. Or maybe someone violates you—so badly you become convinced you can never tell anyone about it. People will tell you they don’t carry any shame, but they do.”
Andy looks at me. “You follow?”
“Perfectly. Brenda Magnusson, homecoming dance, 1991.”
“Doesn’t matter how competent, intelligent, or accomplished you are. You’ve got it tucked away in there. And nobody can cope for any great period of time with the feeling of that nakedness. You know what shame does? It takes a particular violation or several violations from your past, something that really got to you, and convinces you the person you felt like in that violation is who you’ll always be, for the rest of your life. Sad, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say, looking past him.
“So we fashion some fig leaves to protect ourselves. A manufactured story we create that we think will protect us from feeling that shame, so others don’t see that nakedness in us. We don’t want others to see us for the person the lie has told us we are. So we almost unconsciously create a lie to protect us from the lie. Bad combination.”
“Slow down a minute. ‘We don’t want others to see us for the person the lie has told us we are.’ Is that me?”
“We gradually learn to falsely rewrite our own story. We perfect a manipulated story, either of our own inferiority, superiority, or some pretty schizophrenic combination of the two. It becomes the lens we see our lives through. Folks who feel inferior, well, they blame themselves a lot and see themselves as the reason for most of their trouble… and the war in Vietnam. Now, someone who feels superior, he blames others and sees them as the reason for all his problems… and the war in Vietnam. Both are based in a lie. The inferior guy, you feel bad for. The superior guy—he’s a lot of work. He usually thinks his problems are his wife or his coworkers or the guy in front of him in traffic. He doesn’t need much of anything from anyone.”
Suddenly, he stops like he’s realized something.
“Yes, that’s me,” I say.
“Oh,” he says, blinking as if just remembering where he is. “I wouldn’t, well, uhm… yes. It’s you. Perfect example.”
“I get the point.”
He clears his throat. “Now, the engine for every distorted behavior, like, say, anger, for example, is this central lie we’ve used to rewrite our story. And unfortunately, it only perpetuates and reenergizes our shame. It may go underground for a while, but it never goes away. And the saddest part is that it never does what we hope it will. It never covers the shame. And it certainly never solves it. It can make us feel more presentable, but it does nothing to solve our condition. And meanwhile, everyone around us is aware of it and is being wounded by a man who feels relatively presentable.”
“I take it this isn’t supposed to be making me feel any better.”
“Nope.” Andy lifts one hand, motioning for me to stop talking. “But you were wanting me to fix your shame-fueled anger without giving me access to you and your superiority story.”
“I was, huh?”
“You were just trying to modify bad behavior enough to keep you from getting thrown out of your house again… I’m just saying.”
I shrug.
“See, I knew that game plan wouldn’t work for you any more than it ever worked for me. Only a real friend would ever be allowed to address the shame driving your behavior.”
His eyes search mine. “I think that’s why you came here today… right?”
I think back to sitting in my driveway earlier, alone, without a hope in the world. “Yeah,” I say. “That sounds a lot like why I’m here.”
Andy suddenly gets a silly grin.
“Do you know what boat we’re on right now?”
“Of course. This is our company’s boat. I’ve sat on this bench many times.”
Andy runs his hand across a stretch of rail. “Yep, a forty-five-foot princess. She gracefully houses twin turbo diesels and sexy new v-drives inside a state-of-the-art polished composite fiberglass hull. And she stables five hundred horses in each corral down below—horses that can fly in water. Inside she’s dressed comfortably in European maple, full leather, and California Berber. She’s trimmed out with a fifteen-foot beam and radar that can find a tugboat twenty-four miles away. And this sweetheart can dance at twenty knots before she’s half a mile from the jetty. Twenty knots, my friend.”
I look around the deck of the boat I thought I was so familiar with. “Wow. I’m impressed. I’ve never really paid much attention. I’m usually in the back, schmoozing potential clients.”
“Part of my job as dockmaster,” he says, still slowly running his hands along the rails, “is to check out the yachts. But on the side I clean a few and keep the engines fresh. So I tool ’em around the bay a bit. It’s almost like owning several dozen yachts. What do you say we take the lady out for a spin?”
“You’re aware my life is in shambles, right?”
“Oh, yeah.” He smiles at me. “We’ve established that, I think.”
“And you really think we should… ?”
“Yep.”
“All right. I’m not calling the shots today.”
“Good.”
I find a cushioned seat, sit back, and watch Andy walk the length of the boat, meticulously checking features I never knew existed. He unlashes ropes and sits down in the captain’s chair to start her up. Responding smoothly with a deep, low growl, it’s like she belongs to him.
Soon we’re free from the slip and slowly idling our way through the rows and rows of yachts, toward the jetty.
This is like one of those moments you watch in a movie. The setting and circumstances are so funny and out-of-place, it’s obvious they were prepared a long time ago. I’m on my boss’s yacht, being driven around by a crazy man in a ball cap, who’s teaching me how to not end up like my boss.
I laugh out loud. I imagine God smiling next to me, slapping me on the back and saying, “How’s this for a Kodak moment, huh? You might want to listen to this guy. I’ve gone to quite a bit of trouble to get you here.”
It’s all very peaceful. I hear mast bells lightly clanging in the breeze. Once again I’m enveloped by the low rumble of an engine steered by Andy. How can this be? I’m missing from work—nobody knows where I am, and, for the moment, I don’t really care. In the hour of my greatest revealed failure, I’m enjoying the sea for the first time since I was a kid.
Andy picks up his speech where he left off, while man
euvering through the breakwater toward open sea. “Steven, many counselors are trained to help you work on a particular behavior. That’s called behaviorism.”
I make my way up closer to where Andy is so I can hear over the engine.
“Go ahead,” I say.
“It’s like an elaborate game of Whack-A-Mole. Moles pop out of holes, and you whack ’em with a mallet. You score points by how many moles you can whack in a certain amount of time. You’re going along just fine for a while, racking up lots of points. But then the game starts speeding up. We think we’ve ‘fixed’ a behavior, and four more critters pop out. Eventually we’re spending our entire time whacking moles. Therapists put their kids through college teaching us how to hit the little rodents quicker.”
Andy looks up from the controls. “But no behavioral mallet can hit the shame that triggers the lie that releases the mole.”
He lets that picture settle in for a time before continuing. “Now, other people will want to work on what they call your ‘root behaviors.’ That’s psychology. You try to find your way back to some event in your early life. You uncover and examine events that help explain why you needed an inferiority or superiority story. And now the problems in your life will finally be solved. But a good psychologist will caution you that all you’ve done is identify the elements of and causes for your self-story. While that’s incredibly helpful, and may feel good, it doesn’t solve anything. Your shame remains unresolved. Because at the end of the day, no psychological mallet can solve the shame that triggers the lie that releases the mole.”
His voice has gotten progressively louder. We’re skimming along out into deeper water. I want to indicate that I’m following, but I don’t think he could hear me, so I just keep squinting into the sun.
“Just about the time you’ve become totally disillusioned with your journey, Jesus will step out of the shadows and stand next to you. He’ll look in your eyes and say, ‘I took your shame for you two thousand years ago. And I won the right to have it never, ever again define you. It doesn’t belong to you anymore. It’s over. That’s the truth.’ ”
“Is that the ‘come to Jesus’ card?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “I guess so.”
