by Todd Hafer
Knight nodded. “What should I call him?”
“Well, Chop always says, ‘Call me anything—just don’t call me late for dinner!’”
Knight laughed politely.
Cody leaned back, resting his elbows on the second tier of bleachers. “I probably should tell you one thing about Chop,” he said. “You probably notice that he’s got quite a tan.”
Knight nodded again.
“Well, his dad’s white. His mom was black. Still is, I guess. She bounced a couple years ago. See, we don’t have a lot of, uh, African-Americans in this part of Colorado. It was hard for Chop’s mom. It’s been hard for him too. I’ve been with him when people have driven by and called him—well, you know. You should see his eyes when it happens. I mean, he’s a tough guy, but when people say stuff like that, racial stuff—”
“People still do that? In Colorado?”
“People still do that. And worse. Anyway, he can be a bit sensitive about the subject. Just so you know. But don’t get the wrong idea. He’s cool. He has a great sense of humor. Funniest guy in the school, as far as I’m concerned.”
“So, you guys are friends?”
“Best friends.” Cody felt his voice cracking as he said the words. He hoped Kris Knight didn’t notice.
They turned their attention back to the game. They watched Pork Chop grab a rebound, swinging his elbows viciously from side to side as two opposing players tried to steal the ball from him. “Get offa me!” he snarled.
“Watch the ’bows, Chop,” Coach Smith snapped.
“Wow,” Knight said. “I wouldn’t want Pork Chop mad at me.”
Cody whistled through his teeth. “No,” he said, “you sure wouldn’t.”
After one of Pork Chop’s teammates shot an air ball from the free throw line, the shirts team gained control of the ball and launched a fast break. Their point guard drove down the middle of the court, stopped abruptly at the top of the key, and lofted a jump shot that slid through the net without even grazing the rim.
“Wow,” Knight said, “who’s that guy? He’s good!”
Cody watched Terry Alston stand and admire his shot for a moment, then turn and lope downcourt with smooth, easy strides.
“That’s Alston,” he said. “Best athlete in the whole school. Just ask him. He transferred here from a private school in the Springs—Colorado Springs. He says basketball’s his best sport. And, from what I’ve seen in gym class so far, he’s probably right. We should be pretty good this year. We’ll have a new coach. It should be fun.”
Cody stopped talking. Knight had been nodding politely, like a bobble-head doll, but it was obvious he wasn’t that interested in what kind of year the Grant basketball team would have.
Gotta shut up, Cody scolded himself, before you bore this poor guy into a coma.
He focused on the game again. Alston intercepted a lazy crosscourt pass and then dashed downcourt, sandy hair flying behind him. It looked like another easy layup for the shirts team.
Cody was startled when a huge blur streaked by. He thought he heard a cheerful “Check this!” as Pork Chop passed in front of him.
Alston slowed slightly as he zeroed in on the basket, sizing up a right-handed layup. As he released the ball, Pork Chop accelerated behind him. With a loud grunt, Chop propelled his 190 pounds into the air and extended his left arm.
He got just enough of his fingertips on the ball to direct it off the bottom of the backboard.
“Yeah! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Pork Chop’s chest-deep bellow echoed off the gym walls. “How do you like that, TA? How do you like the taste of leather in the mornin’?”
Alston shot a glare at his much larger opponent. He retrieved the ball and then fired a hard chest pass at Pork Chop’s stomach, but Chop caught the ball deftly and set it gently, almost lovingly, on the baseline.
“It’s your ball, Hollywood,” Chop said. “I swatted your mess outta there, remember?”
Cody could feel the tension building like the heat in a sauna. Pork Chop and Alston had been trash-talking since summer baseball. Now they stood only a few feet apart, staring each other down. Pork Chop’s thick arms were folded across his chest, while Alston’s hung at his sides, his hands clenching and unclenching.
When Coach Smith stepped between them, Cody felt a long exhale escape from his chest.
“You best save your aggression for the gridiron, Porter,” Coach said evenly. “Besides, your team’s down by four buckets. Not really a good time to be yappin’.”
Alston went into his trademark sneer. “Yeah, Port—”
“And you,” Coach Smith cut in, “don’t even start with me, Blondie. You know, if you would have gone out for football, you two could have settled your differences on the field. But no, I guess some of us are just too pretty to play football, aren’t we?”
Alston started to retort and then caught himself. Coach Smith shook his head and snorted. “I’ve had a gut full of this class. Run six laps and hit the showers.”
On his way to the locker room, Pork Chop detoured toward Cody. “Did you check that block, Code?” he gushed. “Is the Midnight Cowboy the baddest baller in town or what? Do I not have crazy game? Am I not the king up in this beast?”
Cody rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Chop. You’re bad. You’re nationwide. If you can stop big-upping yourself for a minute, I want to introduce you to someone. This is Kris Knight, a new guy.”
Pork Chop extended a meaty paw to Knight. “Welcome to Grant Penitentiary—I mean, Grant Middle School, new dude. Hey, did you see that block?”
“Uh-huh,” Knight said nervously. “It was…uh…sweet!”
Pork Chop looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. Then he nodded slowly. “Interesting thought, there, Mr. Knight.”
Cody sandwiched his head between his hands and started rubbing his temples. Doesn’t he ever get tired of this act? he wondered.
“Sweet, swwwweeeet, suh-weet,” Pork Chop said, playing with the word like a new toy. “Yeah, it was sweet, wasn’t it? You’re all right, new guy. You’re gonna go far here. You’re what I call…perceptive.”
Knight smiled sheepishly. Cody stifled a groan.
Later that day, Cody and his rookie student sat across from each other at an eight-foot rectangular table near the lunchroom’s exit doors. “Today’s a good day, Kris,” he said, dabbing mustard from the corners of his mouth. “The hot dogs here are pretty good. Of course, who could mess up a hot dog?”
Knight took a bite of his dog and nodded approvingly.
“But, dude, I gotta warn you. You must beware of the grilled-cheese sandwiches in this place. It’s this DayGlo orange stuff that must come from radioactive cows or something.”
Cody felt the table shiver as Pork Chop plopped down across the table from him. “Yeah,” he said, “Code’s right about the sammiches. They upset my tummy big-time. Gives whole new meaning to that slogan about ‘the power of cheese!’ The power to make you hurl!”
“True,” Cody said, gulping from a carton of chocolate milk. “But if you really wanna talk gut-bomb food, you gotta talk lasagna. Under no circumstances should you eat the lasagna here. You’ll get heartburn.”
Pork Chop belched in agreement. “Dude, if I were stranded on a desert island and had a choice between eating the school’s lasagna or my own foot, well, they’d have to start calling me Hopalong!”
Knight covered his mouth with his napkin, fighting to keep his milk where it belonged. Cody saw his eyes begin to water.
Pork Chop clapped Knight on the back so hard that he began to cough. “A man with a sense of humor? I like you already, dude. It’s hard to find people in this little town who can appreciate my sophisticated wit.”
“Well, he’s not going to be able to appreciate your humor if you kill the poor guy with those sledgehammer arms of yours,” Cody said. “Take it easy, okay? The man’s trying to eat.”
It looked to Cody like Pork Chop was forming an apology when the sharp call of “Mr. Porter
!” cut through the chatter and clatter of 127 dining eighth graders. It was Mrs. Studdard, the lunchroom monitor—or Lunch Nazi, as Pork Chop affectionately called her.
“You know the rules here, Mr. Porter. Off with the cowboy hat! Now!”
Pork Chop nodded politely at Mrs. Studdard. He removed his black Stetson, blew some imaginary dust off of it, and, as if it were made of eggshells, set it beside his lunch tray.
Mrs. Studdard sighed heavily. “And the do-rag, too, Mr. Porter.”
Pork Chop groaned loudly. “Aw, Missus S, can’t a brother get some love?”
“Not in my lunchroom, Mr. Porter. I’ve no time for love. You want love? Go find a girlfriend!”
That brought hoots and squeals from many of Pork Chop’s fellow diners.
“But, Missus S.,” he said, rising as if he were a defense lawyer in the trial of the century, “you can’t take my cuh-BOY hat and my do-rag. I’m the Midnight Cowboy!”
Mrs. Studdard tilted her head toward the ceiling, as if seeking divine strength from above. “You’ll have to be the Midnight Cowboy on your own time—and somewhere other than my lunchroom. You want to wear something on your head, I’ll get you a hairnet and you can start helping us serve lunch. I bet you’d look real cute in a hairnet, Mr. Porter.”
More hooting and a few whistles followed this proclamation. Pork Chop looked around the room, smiling. He removed his do-rag, placed it on top of his cowboy hat, bowed to Mrs. Studdard, and sat down.
Chapter 2
Living with Pain
Blake Randall turned off his boom box and wheeled his chair from behind his desk to a spot five feet in front of the metal folding chair where Cody sat.
Cody looked around the cramped rectangular office, which was about half the size of Pastor Taylor’s. He wondered if the youth pastor’s salary was half that of the senior pastor’s as well. One of the longer walls was lined with bookshelves, most packed with Blake’s collection of tattered paperbacks, featuring authors like Lewis, McDowell, Schaeffer, Colson, Buechner, Tozer, and Calvin. Cody recognized a few of the authors from his parents’ own literary collection. His mom had done most of the book reading, sometimes enticing his dad to do a Bible study with her. But he hadn’t seen Luke Martin read anything but the newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, and Business Week since Mom died.
For the past two months, Dad’s black leather Bible sat on his nightstand, usually underneath a coffee cup or reading glasses. Mom never would have stood for that. She had told him hundreds of times, “The Bible is God’s holy Word. It isn’t a coaster or a footrest. And it’s the best book there is, so nothing should ever go on top of it. Not even a book by Billy Graham or Francis Schaeffer or Max Lucado.”
Cody noticed that Blake’s bookshelves held at least a half-dozen Bibles. They were on the top shelf. Mom would approve, he thought. The bottom shelf featured Blake’s hardcover, thick-as-a-brick Bible commentaries—on every book in the Old and New Testaments. “My doorstops,” he jokingly called them.
The other long wall was home to Blake’s CD collection, the envy of every kid at the church. He had ordered the hundreds of CDs alphabetically, from Audio Adrenaline to ZOEgirl.
Blake called his books and music his “soul food.” He once told Cody, “If I ever have to go live on a desert island, this is all I’m takin’ with me—my tunes and my tomes.”
After Blake had explained to Cody that “tome” meant a book, Cody laughed with the same sportsmanship he tried to show a losing team after a game.
Cody turned his attention from the walls to his young youth director, only two years out of college, now intently flipping through the yellow pages of a thick legal pad.
“So,” Blake said deliberately, “how was your week?”
Cody let his gaze fall to the well-worn carpet. It was a faded sky blue, with pinkish flecks, as if someone had splattered Pepto-Bismol across it.
“It was okay, I guess, B. We lost to Central in our season opener. And I got rocked big-time. This dude named Tucker blindsided me. Coach says I need to get tougher.”
Blake sat back in his chair. It looked to Cody like he had finally found the page he was looking for.
“Well, Code, you have Holy Family this afternoon. That should get you one in the win column.”
“We’re in trouble if it doesn’t. Coach will have us doing wind sprints for a week.”
“Your dad going to make it to the game today?”
Cody let a long, slow breath escape his lungs. “You’d have to ask him. But I wouldn’t put money on it. You know, Mom never missed a home game. And she came to almost every away game, too. When it got cold toward the end of football season, she wore this big old red down coat. It made it easy to pick her out in the stands. She looked like a giant tomato.”
Cody waited for Blake to finish chuckling before continuing.
“It wasn’t the same last week, without her in the bleachers. I was trying to focus, trying to play a smart game. But I felt hollow inside. It was hard to breathe sometimes. It reminded me of when Chop and I were kids and he used to sit on my chest. I don’t know—maybe that’s why I got knocked on my can. Too much on my mind.”
Blake forced a smile. It looked more like a grimace to Cody. “Maybe today will be better. I’ll be in the stands, pulling for you.” He held his pen like a chopstick and began drumming on his pad. “Let’s leave football for a while, okay? I’d like to know how you’re doing, emotionally, and especially spiritually.”
Cody let his head tilt back until he heard his neck crackle. “I don’t know, B. Not very well. It just hurts that she’s not here anymore. I almost started crying in science class yesterday, right in the middle of a lesson on photosynthesis. It just kinda hits me hard sometimes. It takes me by surprise.
“It’s crazy, too. On Monday I got an A on my math quiz, and I started thinking, I can’t wait to get home and show this to Mom. I was thinking how excited she’d be because, as you know, getting an A isn’t exactly an everyday thing for me—especially not in math. I swear, it was a good five minutes before it hit me: You can’t tell her, you idiot, she’s dead.”
Blake’s eyes were moist. “I’m sorry, Cody,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, me too. You know, the same thing happened in baseball this summer. It was the last game of the season, and I got my first over-the-fence homer ever. I was thinking that I would call her collect, because the game was up in Denver. She always said, ‘You do something special in any game when I’m not there in person, you call me ASAP, collect!’”
Cody shook his head slowly from side to side. “I’m at a phone booth outside 7-Eleven, I had the number half dialed before reality hit me. Am I crazy, Blake? Am I in, what do they call it—”
“Denial?”
“Yeah, denial.”
“I don’t think so, Code. I’ve been reading a lot about grief. What you’re experiencing is not all that uncommon. Having someone you love around you every day and then having that person taken away suddenly—it’s a shock to the system. Have you talked to your dad about how you feel?”
“I tried once. He just said—from behind his Wall Street Journal I might add—‘Old habits die hard.’ What’s that supposed to mean, anyway? And I’ve asked him to pray with me a couple of times, but he just points his finger at the ceiling and snaps, ‘I have nothing to say to him!’ But other times, I’ll see dad kneeling by his bed or with his hands folded at the dinner table—like’s he’s gotta be praying. What’s up with that, B? It’s like I’m living with two different people!”
“I think your dad is really struggling. Imagine having cancer steal the most important person in your life.”
“I don’t have to imagine. That’s what I face every day. It happened to me, too, Blake!”
Cody felt the hot tears rolling down his face. “I hate this,” he said.
“It’s okay to show your emotions, Cody.”
“I’ve shown them way too often. I couldn’t even speak for Mom at the funeral becau
se I was terrified of making a blubbering fool of myself. And now I’m afraid I’ll start crying at football practice someday. That would be the worst. Coach Smith would have a field day with me. I don’t even want to think about what he’d say.”
“Does it matter what he’d say?”
Cody threw the question around in his mind, as if he were tossing pop flies to himself. He looked Blake in the eye.
“It’s not so much what Coach or anybody else says. It’s just that what’s happening to me—I don’t understand it. I mean, is it going to be like this for the rest of my whole stupid life?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t think you’ll keep running for the phone every time you hit a homer or sink a game-winning free throw. And I don’t think the tears will sneak up on you so frequently.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess. But I don’t want to forget about her either.”
Blake studied his legal pad for a moment. “You won’t, Cody. Remember what Pastor Taylor said at the funeral: Death ends a life on earth; it doesn’t end a relationship. Linda Martin will always be your mom. And I’m not just talking about memories and all that. All the love she invested in you is part of who you are. It always will be.”
“Yeah. I’ll try harder to remember that. I just wish I could still share stuff with her. Like if we won today, we’d go to Mamie’s House of Pies or Dairy Delight to celebrate. Chop and I would tell her all about our favorite plays. We’d answer all of her questions. I’m going to miss that.”
“Maybe you don’t need to miss it.”
“What!? You just lost me, B.”
“You can still tell your mom how you did. My grandpa, my dad’s dad, he died ten years ago, and my pops still goes to his grave a couple times a year. They have ‘conversations,’ although I’m sure they’re pretty one-sided. You can do that too.”
“But isn’t that kinda weird? I mean, it’s like praying to a dead person or something.”
Blake held up his right palm, like a traffic cop. “I never said anything about praying to her—just sharing what’s on your heart.”
