“Do you see where I’m comin’ from?” he asked me, as if imploring me to understand he really had my best interests at heart.
“Yeah, I guess, maybe,” I mumbled.
My pa never did tell me, that day, or any day after, about those things that had happened long ago that caused him a pain so deep that he believed he knew how I felt. Though I wondered about it often, I never did ask him about it. It was a burden that he carried alone in life, and likewise, in death. I suppose he wanted it that way, but I sometimes wondered if he’d write me a letter or something that I could read after his death that would explain those things to me. But he never did. I always wished he had.
When we reached his house that afternoon, I was still licking my wounds. Despite Pa’s attempts to smooth things over, his talk had put me in a foul mood, and I easily slipped back into the familiar rut of depression.
Convinced I would go mad if I didn’t have a drink, and quick, I headed for the door.
“I think I’ll run into town and get a haircut,” I told Pa curtly as I walked out the front door.
“Hey, hold on!” he called out at my back as the door closed behind me. I pretended I didn’t hear him and kept walking briskly toward the car. I heard the door open and cursed him under my breath.
“Robert!” he shouted from the open door. Pretending I didn’t hear him wouldn’t be very convincing now.
“Yeah?” I asked, my hand poised to grab the car door handle.
“Could you hang on a minute? There’s a few things I need from town, if you don’t mind me ridin’ along.” I did mind.
“If you want, I can pick up whatever you need. No sense in you sitting around while I get my hair cut,” I said, trying to wiggle my way out of having him come with.
“Oh, no, that’s fine,” he assured me, “I have a few bills that need payin’, too.”
I shrugged and got in the car, furious that he’d had to barge his way into things. He got in the car, and I reckon more words have been spoken in some hearses than my pa and I exchanged on the ride into town.
When we reached Buxley, he insisted on coming into the barbershop to introduce me to Jim, the barber. Then, when Jim had me safely captive in the barber’s chair, he slipped out to do his business.
“I’m in a bit of a hurry,” I told Jim, as soon as Pa left. Jim wasn’t one to be hurried. Had his fat fingers kept pace with his mile-a-minute tongue, my haircut would have taken about a half minute, but unfortunately, the faster his tongue moved, the slower his fingers moved. There were times his tongue moved so fast his fingers were immobilized altogether. I waited impatiently for him to finish, and when he finally did, I stood up and paid as quickly as I could. Jim gave me my change, and as I turned to sprint for the Crazy Horse Saloon down the street, I heard the jingle-jangle of the door opening. It was Pa.
“All ready to go?” he smiled, sounding a little out of breath. If I had punched his mouth as hard as I felt like punching it, you would have been able to stand behind him and see his smile. I knew he was deliberately trying to get between me and my liquor, and that made me livid. He knew all too well how an alcoholic’s mind works. If there was anyone I’d be able to fool, it wouldn’t be him.
When we walked out of the barbershop, I had half a mind to tell Pa I’d be over at the saloon, drinking, and I didn’t care where the hell he went, but instead, I walked back to the car with him.
You win this round, asshole! I thought to myself as I angrily gunned down the street. Pa sat placidly beside me, as though quite used to seeing a Buick being driven like a stock car. I made up my mind I wasn’t going to lose another round. And I wasn’t going to stick around any longer than I had to.
~~~
At Pa’s suggestion, I went over to Mr. Sander’s place the next morning and inquired whether he might have some farm work or odd jobs that he was willing to hire me to do. I suspected Pa had already talked to him, because he had a handful of things he listed right off the top of his head that I could get busy doing. I spent half the day fixing leaks on the roof of an old hip roof barn, and the other half replacing boards inside it that the moisture had eaten away at.
The events of the previous day were all I thought of all day long, and so my hands moved much more slowly than my mind. Mulling over what Pa had said tired me out worse than the work I was doing. I was hurt that he, of all people, would try to make me out to look like the bad guy. Until Pa had opened his big mouth, it had seemed it was an immutable fact that it wasn’t my fault I’d sunk to such a wretched state. I thought I’d done everything right. I’d been honorable. But now I wasn’t so sure anymore, and I didn’t like not being sure about it.
Then there was the business of him tagging along to town so I couldn’t get a drink. Now that one really busted my chaps.
My indignation simmered all day long, sapping my strength. By late afternoon, I was exhausted, and it was quite apparent to me that I deserved a drink.
~~~
“Couldn’t wait for supper?” Pa asked with a little smile as he walked in the door later on. I was sitting at the table, scarfing down a few slices of buttered bread. It had been my intention to be gone when he got off duty, but I was just a few minutes too late.
“This is supper,” I replied, not returning his smile. He looked at me with raised eyebrows, but didn’t say anything.
He hung up his hat and tossed a handful of mail on the kitchen counter. Ever since we’d had that fishing talk things had been pretty tense between us, but I suppose it was mostly from me yanking on my end of things. I wiped the crumbs off the table and prepared to leave.
“Where you headed?” Pa asked. His meddling was getting the best of my temper.
“To town,” I replied hotly. “To the saloon,” I tacked on before he could ask what my business was. He leaned against the counter with his arms crossed and looked at me as if he had something to say.
“You’re welcome to ride along,” I told him, keeping the sarcasm out of my tone but not my words. He ignored my comment.
“No, Robert, please don’t!” he started in on me. “You don’t have to be a slave to booze!” He said pleadingly. His words lit the end of a fuse I’d cut especially short in anticipation of a fight.
“I’m not!” I snapped at him. He didn’t seem convinced.
“Robert, you are. You might be able to fool yourself but you can’t fool me. Please don’t go to town, son!” he begged me. There was a hurt in his eyes that made me feel guilty, and feeling guilty made me even madder.
“Well, ain’t you one to talk!” I yelled at him. “Suddenly you get religion, and now you’re so goddamn self-righteous and holier-than-thou, looking down on everyone from your high holy horse and figuring you got all the answers! Maybe you can fool everyone around here, but I remember who you were and where you been! So you can stop preaching at me and pretending you’re better than everyone else!”
He looked at me silently with a pained look on his face, and I knew I’d drawn blood. It felt like I couldn’t leave quickly enough, so I wheeled and grasped the knob of the front door.
“Robert,” Pa said quietly. I stopped, turning my head slightly toward him, but looking down at the floor.
“I don’t have all the answers, and I’m sorry if I’ve come across like I do. But what I do know is that Jesus made me a new man and set me free from liquor. And if you’ll let him, he’ll do the same for you.” He spoke with a heartfelt sincerity, but having grown up in church, I’d heard people say things like that about as often as I’d heard my own name, so to me, it sounded like a tired cliché.
“Jesus?!” I scoffed as I looked up at him. “I don’t want to hear your Jesus bullshit! Where was Jesus on D-Day, when a few thousand men lay on the beach, screaming for him as the Krauts butchered them like pigs? Where the hell was Jesus when god-fearing men like Jedidiah Hankins and Honky-tonk Borkowski got blown to hell by German shells? Where the hell was Jesus when my best friend got so mind-fucked by the whole goddamn war he raped a
little girl and got his head smashed in like a fucking piñata?” I reined in my voice, which had risen wildly with each sentence I spoke.
“Where was Jesus,” I continued, my voice low and unsteady, “when I was over in France, fighting for my life, and my wife was two-timing me back home? Where the hell was he then?”
Pa offered no defense, as if he knew there was no answer I would find satisfactory, but I could tell he was bothered by what I’d said. I sighed. Being angry can exhaust a man. Fatigue subdued me.
“I don’t know, Pa,” I said dejectedly. “I know that all that Jesus stuff might have worked for you, and that’s fine. But somewhere between Omaha Beach and Buxley, Tennessee, my Jesus died.” I looked down at the floor and sighed again before looking back up at him.
“And I ain’t heard from him since,” I finished, in almost a whisper. I shook my head. “Not a word . . . Not one word.”
He looked at me until I was done speaking, and then looked down, as if contemplating what I’d said. I wanted to leave, but something told me he had something to say, so I stood there and listened to the tick tock of the clock. When he finally looked up, he wore a patient smile that told me he wasn’t about to give up on me.
“Well, son, in order to have the glory of a resurrection, you first need to have a death.” He let his words settle.
“Don’t you?” he prodded gently.
I shrugged my shoulders and sighed yet again.
“Maybe so, Pa. Maybe so.” I said. He looked like he had about said all he’d say.
“All I know for sure is that I need to have a drink,” I said, turning to open the door as I said it because I didn’t want to see his disappointment.
“If Jesus comes ’round looking for me, you can tell him I’m over at the Crazy Horse,” I said, and quickly shut the door behind me.
~~~
Jesus didn’t show up that night at the Crazy Horse Saloon. Or the next. Or the next. Or the next.
For two weeks I worked and thought all day, and drank and tried not to think at night. Mr. Sanders never asked any questions when I showed up two or three hours late for work, and Pa must have figured he’d said his piece, because he didn’t do any more preaching, lecturing, or talking of any kind. I suppose he was wise enough to know that sometimes all you can do is plant some seed and pray for rain. And maybe he knew that he didn’t need to say anything more. Maybe he knew that what he’d already said had dug into my mind like the claws of a wildcat into the back of a horse. For two weeks I bucked and stomped and rolled over, trying to throw off the thoughts about honor, self-pity, bitterness, repentance and forgiveness that were tearing a strip off my hide. But they clung to me no matter how hard I tried to shake them, or how much I drank.
Finally, when I’d about wore myself out, things started turning the corner.
Table of Contents
FOURTEEN
YOU STILL LOVE HER, DON’T YOU?
I stared out the window and blinked. I blinked again. The spot on the grass where I usually parked my car was vacant. The driveway was empty, too. I remembered it was Sunday morning, so it made sense that Pa was in church, but where was my Buick? I leaned my pounding head up against the glass and closed my eyes.
“Shit!” I groaned. I’d tucked a bottle of Jack Daniel’s under the front seat when I’d left the saloon the night before, I was sure of it, but that helped me little if I couldn’t find the car.
I looked back up again, as though some magical car fairy might have dropped it off while I was looking away. It hadn’t.
The kettle on the stove whistled at me, and I walked over and made myself some strong, black coffee. Taking the cup of coffee, I walked outside in my bare feet and looked around to see if I’d abandoned the car someplace I couldn’t see from inside the house. It was nowhere in sight.
I wandered about the yard and finally walked over to a rope swing that hung from a gnarled old apple tree. It looked like it’d probably hung there for most of my lifetime, so I sat down gingerly on it, slowly lowering my weight pound by pound. It held, so I sat with my feet on the ground and rocked gently back and forth, trying not to spill my coffee. The air smelt like rain. I tried to remember what could have happened to my car, but I’d been so drunk I couldn’t recollect anything that had happened after I’d gotten into my car the night before.
The chatter of a couple of squirrels stole my attention, and so I watched them fuss at each other and chase each other around as I sipped my coffee and smoked. I was still sitting there when I heard the dull rumble of a car on the road. Pa was home from church.
When he got out of the car, he walked over to me instead of going inside.
“Nice day,” he said amicably.
“Um-hum,” I agreed, but still took a look around to see if there was something especially pleasant about the day I’d missed.
“Looks like rain,” I commented.
“Yup. We could sure use some,” Pa nodded. He stood silently with his hands in his pockets, as I thought about asking him if he knew what’d happened to my car. Somehow, I just couldn’t quite figure out how to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t make me feel stupid or embarrassed. Pa saved me the trouble.
“You, uh, lose your car?” he asked. It wasn’t so much a question as a gentle poke in the ribs.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I believe I must have left the gate open,” I answered, feeling the warmth of chagrin flow up my neck and over my face. Pa looked at me with a little smile, as if he might be enjoying himself just a little.
“Tell you what,” he said. “We’re havin’ a bit of a special service at church tonight. There’ll be a coupla baptisms, and a fellowship after. How ’bout you come with me, and afterwards, we’ll go see if we can round up that lost car of yours?” It really didn’t seem like I had much of a choice.
“OK,” I said, not so much consenting as not resisting.
~~~
The church was full that evening. Pa made sure he had us there early enough to introduce me to pretty much everyone there at least once, and my hand got pumped so often it wouldn’t have surprised me if water had started flowing out of my nose.
As for the service itself, I paid little attention to most of it, since I viewed my attendance there as a means to an end. While the preacher was sermonizing, I occupied myself with thinking thoughts I should have been ashamed of about the leggy redhead in the next pew. And though I’ll never know what topic he was preaching on that night, there was something he said as he was winding things down that lodged itself in my ear.
“Maybe something I’ve said has offended some of you tonight,” I heard him say. “But before you get too angry at me, would you first examine what I’ve said, and ask yourself this: Is the thing I said that made you angry true? The truth will never rub you the wrong way, unless you’ve positioned yourself to be at odds with it. So if it feels like the truth is rubbing you the wrong way, turn around! You can’t win against truth! It’s like trying to paddle a canoe up a waterfall! Fighting it will only exhaust you! Sooner or later, the truth will conquer you, and only your pride will keep you fighting a futile battle that you cannot win.”
He kept talking, but I was already too gorged with food for thought to listen to any more. It all began to make sense to me. I’d spent several weeks inwardly seething at the offensive things Pa had said to me. But now, instead of viewing them simply as things I found to be hurtful, I allowed myself to entertain the possibility that the reason they grated me so was because they were, in fact, the truth. And if the preacher was right, the truth would not be denied. I was just prolonging my own agony.
When we left the church some time later, I was still sorting things out, but was beginning to feel the peace that surrender to the truth brings. It made me feel ashamed for how I’d been treating Pa. I felt like I should apologize to him for how I’d been behaving toward him the last while, but though I got the words loaded and the hammer cocked several times, somehow I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Pa had stopp
ed speaking his mind to me, and now, I suddenly felt like I needed to talk, but I really didn’t know how to get things started.
“There it is,” Pa interrupted my thoughts. He pointed down the street, where my Buick was parked in front of the Crazy Horse Saloon. I’d been so deep in thought I’d forgotten about my missing car for most of the night.
“So it is,” I said, a little relieved.
We pulled up beside it and I got out. I got into my car and went to start it. There were no keys in the ignition. I looked around on the dashboard, the floor, the seats, but my search for the keys turned up nothing. I looked over at Pa, who was still parked beside me. He looked at me questioningly, so I walked over to explain.
“I can’t find the keys,” I told him, feeling a little downcast.
“Oh,” was all he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. My ring of keys.
“Would these work?” he asked with a sly little smile. Instead of being angry, I felt a sheepish grin creep across my face.
“Couldn’t hurt to try,” I replied, snatching the keys that dangled at the end of his outstretched arm. I got back into the Buick and we were off.
By the time I reached the edge of the town, I determined that my drinking days were over. It was time to face life and reality like a man again. It was time to start dealing with things.
I remembered the bottle of Jack Daniel’s I’d stowed under my seat, and decided I’d better get rid of it before it tempted me at a moment when my resolve wasn’t quite as firm. I felt around under the seat, but couldn’t feel anything, so I leaned forward even further and moved my hand around side to side. Still nothing. I leaned down so far I almost drove myself off the road before I realized the bottle simply wasn’t there.
I sat back up, perplexed for a moment. Then the light came on. I smiled and shook my head. You win this round, asshole! I thought to myself, not at all angrily.
When I got back to Pa’s place, he was already brewing a pot of coffee. Instead of retreating to my room like I had done of late, I sat down at the kitchen table. I needed to talk.
Love is a Wounded Soldier Page 29
