Three Minutes More

by Edward O'Dell

  Three Minutes More

  Title Page

  Chapter 1: What is Heaven?

  Chapter 2: The House and the Creek

  Chapter 3: Don’t Pick

  Chapter 4: Bees

  Chapter 5: The Indian

  Chapter 6: Joseph

  Chapter 7: Hide and Seek

  Chapter 8: Free Fall

  Chapter 9: The Car

  Chapter 10: The Well

  Chapter 11: The Attic

  Chapter 12: Cat Fight

  Chapter 13: Horns and a Pitchfork

  Chapter 14: The Watch

  Chapter 15: Foster Care

  Chapter 16: Aunt Marilee and Uncle Charlie

  Three Minutes More

  Edward R. O’Dell

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  __________________________

  Copyright © 2010 by Edward O’Dell

  Publisher: Smashwords

  All rights reserved. No portion of this content may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Chapter 1: What is Heaven?

  When I was younger, I occasionally marveled at the promise of Heaven. Living in the “Bible Belt,” that promise has been impressed upon me ever since I can remember. And while I do believe in it, I never, before tonight, had reason to seriously consider that I might be going to meet God. But this evening’s events have left me hurt pretty badly, and while I am hoping it’s not my time to go, I have always heard that it can’t hurt to be prepared.

  That said, if this is the night God does decide to take me home, I hope Heaven has a creek with lots of big crawdads in it. I figure He must like crawdads, because He sure made a lot of them!

  Oddly, though I went to church enough to be known by name, I hardly ever heard Heaven actually described. Preachers and Sunday school teachers alike seemed to prefer to talk about what would happen if one didn’t make it to Heaven. “You will burn for eternity. You’ll pray to die, but you can’t. You’ll beg God to give you another chance, but He will have forever closed His ears,” they said.

  Granny, on the other hand, preferred to focus more on the imagery. Although I haven’t seen either her or Grandpa Joe for more than a year, I doubt she has lost her fervor for all things Heaven. She described it as a paradise. A beautiful, tranquil place where nothing bad can happen. “Granny talked a lot about God. In fact, she rarely uttered a sentence that didn’t refer to God in some form. Even the most mundane of things, such as the arrival of one of her grandchildren to hoe her garden, prompted a “praise God!” or a “thank you, Jesus!” Grandpa Joe used to get annoyed by what he called “her johnny-come-lately bible thumping.”

  According to Granny, anything that happened, good or bad, was “God’s work.” Grandpa Joe disagreed with her, telling her “not everything is God’s work. Some of it is the work of the devil, but the vast majority of it is man’s doing.”

  Anytime Granny challenged him on his beliefs, Grandpa Joe quickly pointed out that it wasn’t until her atheist brother lay dying, begging God to forgive him, did she become a Believer. He often reminded her that she lived a life of unmentionable sin for some sixty years. He told her he found it absurd she felt entitled to preach to him.

  Even when not loudly discussing matters of faith, Granny found other things to yell at him about, most of which regarded either all the work he didn’t get finished at the greenhouse that they owned, or for not standing up for his daughter, even if he knew she was in the wrong.

  Come to think of it, I can recall few civil conversations between the two. You know, I think she actually enjoyed yelling. I have often wondered how she could yell so much and not lose her voice. I know that on those occasions in which I yelled too much, I found it difficult to yell through my sore throat the following day.

  While Grandpa Joe bore the brunt of her rants, she rarely yelled at any of us kids, save for Joseph. She and Grandpa Joe raised Joseph since he was little, even before I was born. I think she tried to not play favorites among her grandchildren, but she always had a difficult time watching us gang up on Joseph, something we did most any time we got the chance. She often came to his defense, insisting that we stop picking on him. I think she thought of him more as a son, rather than a grandson.

  Every once in a while, Grandpa Joe would counter her yelling with some of his own. But most of the time, he simply got up and walked out the door. He usually walked the full three and a half miles to the greenhouse. I think the hour-plus-long walk helped him, because by the time he reached the greenhouse, he usually had forgotten about her tirades. He concentrated on all the work that needed to be done.

  A hard-working, soft-spoken, and generally tranquil man, he sought peace and quiet. However, he lived in a world full of noise and chaos. If he wasn’t fleeing the rage of his frantic wife, he was trying to grasp the actions of his abusive and wildly unpredictable daughter, who I, until tonight, thought was the meanest person on the entire planet.

  He tried to talk to us kids about my mother, but he often found himself struggling to find the right words. As time passed, he gave up trying, reflecting, instead, on how he and Granny raised her. “I wish I wouldn’t have given in every time she wanted something,” he bemoaned.

  I think he finally concluded that no matter how he raised her, she was simply not cut out for motherhood. “Nothing against you boys,” he said. “I’m glad she had you, but she and Bill should have stopped at Joseph. Your mom and dad weren’t aware of everything it took in parenting even one child. There’s no way in hell she can take care of eight!”

  When conflict arose, his daughter was often the reason for it. From time to time, she would start a fight, just to see where her father’s loyalties lay. She had a very difficult time accepting that she didn’t have absolute, unbridled support from her father on all matters. She once called him “a useless, pathetic old geezer who showed more loyalty to his goddamned plants than to his own flesh and blood.”

  Although old and growing frail, he did all he could to make his grandkids’ lives a little more bearable. He said he believed that we kids needed to get away from the turmoil, if only for a little while. He took at least one of us to the greenhouse with him every day. He reasoned that the tranquility of the greenhouse provided us with some measure of peace and quiet. And while poor by any measureable standard, he always scraped enough money together to buy an ice cream or a candy bar for anyone working with him on any given day.

  From the way I hear he’s been talking lately, I don’t think it will be too long before he goes to Heaven. I hear he lies on his makeshift bed after putting in a hard day’s work at the greenhouse, and prays for Saint Peter to call him home.

  Last time I talked to my father, he said that he visited the greenhouse, and Grandpa Joe looked very frail. He also said Grandpa Joe warned against anyone mourning his passing, declaring that he would forever haunt anyone at his funeral not dancing for joy.

  Though I know my brothers would sorely miss his calming presence, I’m comforted by the thought that if I don’t make it through tonight, someone I know will soon be in Heaven with me. I am especially comforted that it will be the practical, reasoned Grandpa Joe.

  When his time does come, I wonder if his daughter, Feenie, will even bother to come to his funeral. I am a bit torn about that prospect. I understand she would have the right – some would even say obligation – to pay her final respects, but I find that a bit hypocritical. Perhaps instead of final, she could pay her only respects. God knows she paid little, if any, to him in the past.

  I know I should not be
calling Feenie anything other than Mom. However, I, Eddie, Jeff, and James have all not called her by that title ever since James physically fought with her, about two years ago. James said she didn’t deserve the title, just like our father didn’t deserve the title Dad, because a dad is supposed to protect his children. He declared “that damned geezer ain’t ever done a damned thing to protect any of us.”

  Don’t misunderstand me – I’ve never been foolish enough to address either of them as such. An encounter like that would have, in no way, worked to my benefit. When addressing them directly, calling either of them anything other than what they deemed appropriate would have likely found me in need of immediate medical help. However, when we kids discuss things amongst ourselves, we always refer to them as Feenie and The Old Man.

  Feenie left us for the final time a little over a year and a half ago. I don’t recall the exact day, but it was sometime before Halloween. When I arrived home from school that day, James and Eddie were rejoicing like never before. “Bitch is gone for good,” James said, high-fiving Eddie in celebration, accidentally knocking him over his schoolbooks.

  They said they celebrated when they got home to find she wasn’t there. They rejoiced even more when they looked around to find she took all of her prized possessions with her. They couldn’t contain themselves when Eddie read aloud the card she left for The Old Man. Poor geezer probably still doesn’t know we read it, and we knew why she left.

  She had left many times before, but never took her cherished belongings with her. She usually packed some clothes, maybe six or seven changes. On those occasions, she usually came back within a week or two. But that day, she took the silver dollar clock she won at Bingo, some of The Old Man’s Avon collection, all of her jewelry, and her best clothes, including her expensive black fur coat.

  In the months leading to their big fight, James argued with Feenie almost every day. In fact, he displayed hostility toward her ever since he was nine years old. He didn’t like how she treated him or his brothers. And as soon as he grew big enough to where she didn’t physically intimidate him, he always stood his ground.

  Where she saw defiance, his six brothers saw heroism. When she beat me or any of my other brothers, as she did often, she always made us scream. But she either couldn’t hurt James, or he refused to give her the satisfaction of knowing she could hurt him. The last time he cried after she beat him, he was eight, when she hit him with a battery strap across the back five good times. After wincing and finally letting out a bit of a whimper, he turned and promised her he would never cry for her again. She quickly hit him four more times on his butt and legs, but he didn’t cry.

  From that moment on, no matter how hard or how many times she lashed into him, he never changed his expression. Once in a while, when she would literally exhaust herself whipping him, he would frustrate her, turning to say “are you finished?” She would whip him a bit more, but could not break him.

  Even though they are now in State custody, I think most of my brothers are happy that she is no longer part of our lives. Donnie and Tim are too young to fully grasp all that has happened, so I can’t speak for them. Though Eddie talks a lot about the future of the family, that future never includes Feenie. James might be a bit disappointed he didn’t get one final showdown with her, but he is content with a Feenie-free future.

  One could say that her leaving for good set in motion the events that led to my unfortunate situation. But should I not be able to escape death’s grip, I hope my brothers won’t look back with regret. In the end, we all got what we desperately wanted for many years: Feenie out of our lives.

  I don’t even know where some of my brothers are right now. I hear Jeff is somewhere in Parsons with the same family he’s been with for almost a year and a half. I think Donnie is in a similar situation up in Dailey. I’m not sure what has happened with Tim. Though I assume Joseph is still with Granny, I don’t give a shit about where he is, nor do I care about what will happen to him.

  James is in limbo right now. He is staying with his friends. He hasn’t adjusted well to foster care. He’ll be ok if he finds a family with lots of patience and understanding. He has proven a difficult challenge, preferring to stand toe-to-toe with foster parents who feel the need to impose their will on him. That approach has long proven futile. After all, his own parents could not affect his behavior by going that route.

  Lee is troubled. Left to his own devices, he will probably do something on impulse, posing danger to himself or others. He has always presented some sort of enigma, displaying bizarre behavior at the most inopportune times. Having been put in the State Children’s Home, he has yet to be placed with a family. I pray the family doesn’t abandon him. He will need our help and guidance later on in life.

  Finally I come to Eddie. Although he is still very young, I wouldn’t call him naïve. My closest brother, he views all people and all circumstances with initial skepticism. He rarely lets his guard down, preferring to study his surroundings for indications of malicious intent. He is reluctant to warm to new families quickly. While helpful for negotiating a cruel world, that trait can also be detrimental in finding a good home. To some, his unwillingness to quickly reciprocate affection is equated with inability to do so.

  Eddie and I have been talking a lot on the phone lately, mostly reminiscing about growing up in that old, dilapidated shack deep in the hollow. We’ve been comparing all the foster families we’ve been placed with over the past year. We’ve also been talking a lot about how our lives may have been different if either Feenie or The Old Man gave a damn.

  I never even imagined the possibility that I might not get to see Eddie in person again. It’s been three weeks since I last saw him. Mrs. Kroy, the child welfare woman, took me over to visit him at the White’s house, where he’s been living for about two months now. They seem like pretty nice people, but I think their age will prevent them from taking him in for very long. He’s already been in four foster homes, just like me. James holds the record, seven.

  Eddie cried the last time we saw each other. He really wants the family to get back together. Standing in the living room of his foster family’s home, and with both Mr. and Mrs. White within eight feet of him, he declared “Mike, we’re never gonna be a family again, you know that. I’m sick of these foster homes. I’m sick of these stupid two hour visits. This life stinks.”

  Of course, I want the family back together, too. But truth be told, I really don’t expect that to happen. I hate to admit it, but I think Mrs. Kroy is right. The Old Man simply cannot parent seven boys while working two jobs. I doubt he owns the skills needed, even if work is taken out of the equation.

  Nonetheless, I couldn’t allow Eddie to give up all hope. After all, it was usually he who came to my aid in the past. “I know it sucks, but if you can hang in there, we can make it back together,” I told him. “The Old Man needs to do some things the State wants done before we can live together. I think he wants us together, but that evil witch, Mrs. Kroy, and the State are in charge of us now.”

  Still, if someone would have asked Eddie his preference – a life with Feenie or one without her, he would have chosen the latter. I would have considered it a tossup. I didn’t like her, and my disdain for her grew stronger by the day. But I despised being in foster care, away from my brothers, just as much. Of course, if I had a crystal ball and could have foreseen today’s events, then without question I would have chosen the former.

  In case I won’t be able to escape my predicament, I want all my brothers to know how I feel. I’d like to thank them all for doing their parts to make life just a little more bearable. While sometimes life has seemed a cruel monster, combating it with the assistance of six like-minded brothers was far easier than tackling it alone. I’d also like to let Eddie to know that I really liked talking with him the last several days on the telephone.

  As you might imagine, my mind is racing. I have so much I need to say. It’s a strange feeling. When you’re young and he
althy, you usually don’t even think about the possibility of dying. You focus on other things, like playing baseball, or doing homework, or crawdad hunting. You simply don’t prepare for moments like these. That being said, I hope you’ll forgive me if I come across as disjointed.

  First, I must say if He does decide to call me home, I am nervous about the prospect of meeting God. I simply haven’t readied myself. I have been told over and over that God knows every thing I have done, or even thought about doing, in my whole life. Judging by what Granny has told me over the past few years, I think He might be a little disappointed with me. Although I’m still quite young, I know I’ve done things that have disheartened Him.

  I have never envisioned God as a vengeful being, like so many of the preachers would have me believe. But I don’t believe everyone gets a free pass, either. That being said, I wish I knew what criteria He uses in deciding who He allows into Heaven. I think my age might offer me an advantage. In the past, when questions on that subject arose in church, there was some consensus that age twelve was the cutoff where one became responsible for managing his relationship with God.

  Given that, I know there would be lots of kids up there. I personally know of two who have gone to meet God. Timmy Summers, who died last year in a car accident, will be there. Johnny Pratt, who I played with a lot at school, was pretty sick when God called him home. He spent his final three months in a lot of pain, unable to even get up out of his hospital bed. I know his mom and dad were hurt when he died, but I think they were relieved he was finally out of pain.

  Granny, for her part, simply repeated what she heard in so many hard-line Southern Baptist sermons, saying “you must be born again, regardless of your age, to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

  I hope God would understand that I don’t fully comprehend what being born again really means. I think it means getting baptized and accepting Jesus, though I can’t imagine why getting dunked in a river here on Earth has anything to do with being able to live forever in Heaven.