by Shawn Inmon
Joe pulled his tiny pickup in behind a newer-model Ford F150.
Should’ve known she’d be here already. Can’t keep her away.
“Sam!” Joe called across the lot.
“Over here!” a faraway voice answered.
Joe headed toward the sound of the voice. A hundred yards later, he came across Sam, bent at the waist, spray-painting a circle on the ground and drawing an X through it.
Whatever Ben said you were going to be, he undersold you. Everyone is going to think this project is mine, but without you, it wouldn’t get off the ground.
“How did I know I would find you here?”
Sam straightened and pushed a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes. “Because I’m always here?”
Joe chuckled. “It does seem like you’re here more than home. Or arguing with the city about permits.”
“The city is difficult, but not intractable. I can usually help them see the light.”
“We’ve been working together for a month now, and I’m a little embarrassed that I don’t really know anything about you, other than this entire project can’t survive without you now. You married?”
Sam nodded. “Yep. At the moment, I’m married to this job. Before this, I was married to that job. I never seem to find time to socialize and date. Men don’t seem to fall for the girl whose mind is constantly on blueprints, plat maps, and building specs.” She looked at Joe appraisingly. “What about you? Married? Girlfriend?”
“Nope. Women don’t seem to appreciate men who essentially live like a hermit.” He smiled. “It’s not that bad. I used to keep to myself all the time, but now I’ve got a lot going on.”
“You used to, huh? Sometimes you sound like an old man, looking back at a lifetime’s experiences, instead of what you are, which is what? A twenty-five year old, maybe?”
“Close enough. I feel older than that, sometimes.”
“I’ll give you credit for this—you’re much more mature than most men I meet that are years or decades older than you.”
Is that a compliment, since I’m actually in my fifties, now? I guess so, but I should be more mature than I look.
“Anyway,” Sam continued, “I’ve just got a roommate, and she feels like she’s getting a good deal. She gets to split the rent with someone who’s only home to sleep and shower. You live alone?”
“No, I’ve got Jenny,” he said, pointing at her on the other side of the meadow, chasing down an interesting smell. “And I’ve got a cat named Allen. He’s king of the castle. I only live there to serve him.”
“Oh, I knew about Jenny, of course. I think she’s the sweetest girl I’ve ever seen.”
Jenny’s ears pricked up at the sound of her name and she came jogging over to them, begging for a scratch behind her ears. Sam knelt down and nuzzled her, which Jenny accepted with aplomb.
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, come on over here. I want to show you where the pond’s going to go in.”
They walked side by side across the site, pointing and dreaming of what would be.
Chapter Forty-Six
It took three years to get from the first blush of an idea to reality, but it did happen.
Sam Staley gave her heart to the project. Every twelve months, Joe gave her a raise but knew she was still underpaid for what she did.
In May of 1988, Joe Hart was twenty-eight years old. In some ways, he was unchanged. He still dressed the same—t-shirts or flannel shirts, jeans, and tennis shoes or work boots. He was still a little on the thin side and wore his hair the same way.
In all the ways that counted, though, the previous three years had changed him once again. Being the driving force behind a project that evolved into something so immense brought him completely out of his shell. He spent hours every day on the job site, working side by side with the construction crew and collaborating with Sam on every detail.
He had become a part of a team that was working toward a single goal and it was there he managed to find the beginning of the family he had sought all his life.
Every Sunday in the spring and summer, Joe hosted a barbecue in his back yard and invited all the workers and their families. Eventually, that grew to a point that he invited his whole neighborhood as well, and it became a block party at Joe’s house every Sunday. Joe bought the meat and soda and everyone else brought the side dishes.
The boy who had been a hermit had become the man with more friends than he could count. Every one of them was a blessing to him.
The first time Sam brought a dish, Joe learned that her skills did not necessarily extend from being organized to being a good cook. At the end of the day, her baked beans was one of the few dishes with a lot of leftovers. Joe surreptitiously scooped them into a bowl so she wouldn’t see that her offering had gone uneaten.
Over the years, word spread that Joe was spending the money he got from his father’s royalties to give back and an unusual thing happened. Eight years after Forever for You had fallen off the charts, Music Directors at radio stations around the country began programming it again. For a second time, it hit the American Top 40. It wasn’t the smash number one song it had been the first time, but it made it to #18, which added yet more money to the coffers. The harder he tried to give the money away, the faster it grew.
Scott Mckenzie had stopped in on three occasions, as he had promised he would. Each time, they wandered around the job site and marveled at what had come from one simple conversation over a steak in Joe’s backyard. Scott never stayed long, though. For all his talk about getting off the road and no longer stopping bad people doing bad things, he kept at it.
On May 18, 1988, exactly ten years after Joe had fruitlessly saved the lives of Bobby and JD, Sam called Joe and asked him if he could come to the site. He loaded Jenny into the Olds—she needed a little more help in getting up into the seat of the Courier these days—and headed straight over.
As he approached, he marveled at what they had accomplished. It was no longer just a construction project; it had taken the shape of a small village. And, there was something new—a large sign had been erected over the gate that opened onto the project. Joe squinted at it, but could only see it was covered in canvas. All the workers were gathered around, with Sam at the forefront and Ben Jenkins standing beside her.
What are these guys up to now?
Joe rolled up and stopped right in front of them. He climbed out with a small smile playing on his lips. “What? Did we dig down too deep and discover oil or something? What’s everybody smiling about?”
Sam took a step forward. “I try to get your approval on everything, but I know you, and I know how modest you are—“
“—With good reason,” Joe interrupted.
“—but, we wanted to do this for you anyway. This didn’t come out of the project budget. We all got together and did it for you out of our pockets. To say thank you. Thank you for letting us all be part of this. Thank you for what you are doing for those who can’t do for themselves. But mostly, thank you for who you are.”
She stepped up and hugged Joe, then kissed his cheek. The cheek on the left side of his face, where his birthmark was.
The thirty or so workers broke out into applause.
Sam put her arm around Joe and said, “Let ‘er rip, Tony!”
A burly man tugged on a rope and the canvas fell away.
The sign was a dark, burnished metal. White ceramic letters spelled out, “The Rodrigo Hart Oasis for Veterans.” Beneath that, in smaller letters, it read, “A refuge from the storms we carry with us.” That line was a quote from one of Rodrigo’s songs.
Over the course of three lifetimes, Joe Hart had never cried in front of anyone. Not even when he had fallen down on the playground and bloodied his nose in third grade. That streak ended when he saw the sign. He tried to speak, but his throat was thick and nothing came out.
“We’ve been talking about a name for this place for years,” Sam said in a rush. “And we could never settle
on one. When Scott came to visit a few months ago, he told me your dad was a vet, too. That’s when everything fell into place. We passed the hat for the materials and the workmen did the rest when they were off the clock. They wanted to make it for you.”
Joe nodded. This project has felt so right from the very beginning. Now, it feels complete.
Joe rubbed the back of his hand across his face and hugged Sam close to him. He smiled at Ben, thinking of the day he sat in his law office, when this was only a dream.
“This project—no, sorry, this oasis—has given my life meaning. I wanted to give a little something out to the world. Instead, it’s been given back to me a thousand times over. This whole thing is the brainchild of my friend Scott. I wish he was here today to see this. Sometimes I stop and wonder where my life would be if he hadn’t thought of all this. I’d be a lot lonelier, that’s for sure.”
Joe looked from face to face. He knew all of them by name, as well as their wives and children.
“I hope you all know that when this is finished and you’ve gone on to other jobs, this gate will always be open to you. I’m gonna be pretty unhappy if you don’t all stop in and beat me at pool or ping-pong at least once in a while.”
Joe cleared his throat, eyes still shining in the morning sun.
“Now, let’s get back to work and get this job finished!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The Rodrigo Hart Oasis for Vets was a sight to behold. A model of what could be accomplished when good people put their minds on a single project. There were a dozen small cottages modeled after the mother-in-law home that Stan Fornowski had built. These units were designed for veterans having the toughest times. It allowed them privacy and a chance to heal and think on their own.
Running down the middle of the compound were two long bunkhouses that could house twenty-five men in each. These were for those who needed a place to stay, but also wanted the company and support of others around them.
There was an administration building, a mess hall, a counseling office, and the rec hall. The rec hall was one of the two biggest buildings of all—big enough that most everyone could fit in it at once. Inside it, there was a small auditorium where movies could be played, a large open room with half a dozen pool and ping-pong tables. There were even a couple of card tables in one corner, although one of the rules of the Oasis was that there was no gambling allowed. Joe didn’t want someone to come in and relieve everyone of their benefits checks. Everyone stayed at the Oasis for free, which allowed them to stockpile those checks and have a little head start when they left.
The outside was landscaped to fit in with the surrounding area. No flower beds, but lots of shade trees and natural growth forest. There were long, twisting walking paths that led through the trees and around the duck pond.
Joe’s pride and joy, though, was the new Middle Falls animal shelter. He had made a deal with Debbie to move the whole operation under the umbrella of his own non-profit. The new shelter was almost three times the size of the old one, and with a better design and layout, it was able to house four times as many animals. The only thing Joe asked in return was that it be converted to a no-kill shelter. Debbie happily agreed.
KGW, one of the Portland television stations, sent a crew to Middle Falls to do a public interest story on both Joe and the grand opening of the Oasis.
The pretty young reporter was wearing the wrong kind of shoes to be walking through the forested grounds, but she gamely tried to keep up with Joe as he walked and talked.
“It’s a bit unusual to combine an animal shelter with a hospice for homeless veterans, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Joe answered with a shrug. “I guess so, but if anyone could see the way our guests have interacted with the dogs and cats, I think it would be a lot more common. Deep down, I think everyone wants to work. So, for our guests, we try to have jobs for them. Custodial work, landscaping work, or volunteering in the shelter.” Joe laughed a little. “That’s the most popular job. We’re never short on volunteers in the shelter.”
“One question everyone will want to know is, why? Why go to all this trouble and expense to house so few people? Won’t people wonder if maybe those resources could have been better directed to a wider group and benefited more veterans?”
“I think that’s two questions. First, the why of it is easy. There’s a need. I had the resources, and I couldn’t think of a better group of people to help than those who served our country and risked their lives for us. For those people who want to question how I spend my money, I would tell them to pony up their own funding and spend it however they want. I won’t say a word about it.”
The young woman persisted. “But is something like this so small that it can’t really make a huge difference?”
“Have you ever heard the story of the starfish?”
The reporter shook her head.
“My mom used to tell me this story when I was little. A man was walking along a beach on the morning after a big storm. The wind and waves had tossed thousands of starfish up on the beach, where they would perish. Off in the distance, the man saw a small boy walking toward him. Every few steps the boy would pick up something and throw it into the ocean. When he got closer, the man saw he was throwing starfish.”
Joe looked out of the corner of his eye to see if the reporter was still listening. She seemed to be.
“’Excuse me, son,’ the man called. ‘There are too many starfish for you to be able to save them all. There’s too many to make a difference, really.’ The young boy picked up a starfish, threw it back in the water, and said, ‘Made a difference to that one.’”
The reporter looked blankly at Joe. After a moment’s pause, she realized the story was over and said, “Oh, yes, of course.”
Joe turned his head and looked at Sam, who was trailing them out of view of the camera. “But, I’m not the person you should be talking to, anyway. Sam, come here!”
Sam turned to flee, but the camera turned on her and she realized it was too late. She was caught. She reluctantly walked toward Joe.
“This is Sam Staley. She’s really the person who knows what’s going on around here. She’s been the person who has handled everything from the beginning.”
Before she could protest, Joe hustled away from the spotlight, leaving Sam impaled by the lens of the camera, looking daggers at him. He smiled, waved, and hurried away.
AS SOON AS THE PROJECT was complete and all loose ends had been tied into tidy knots, Joe called Sam into his office.
When she walked in, she looked more relaxed than Joe had ever seen her. All was good with the Oasis, and Joe sensed she was likely ready for a new challenge.
“I don’t have to tell you what a job you’ve done for us here. None of this,” Joe waved his hand around the office, but indicated the entire project, “would have been finished. Not to mention on time, on budget, and with a little money left in the kitty. You’ve been a wonder.”
Sam sat quietly.
“I can’t help but wonder if maybe you’re thinking about your next challenge, now. I know how you like to keep busy.”
Again, Sam sat silently.
“I don’t know if you’d ever consider it, but I was wondering if you would consider staying on as Executive Director, or CEO, or whatever you’d like to be called. Absolutely everyone would report to you, definitely including me. I can’t run this place. I’ll just make a mess of it.”
“I’ve been waiting for months for you to ask me. I thought maybe you were calling me in to fire me. But, I’m not that easy. I like to negotiate a little, so you have to answer a question for me, first.”
“Of course. Anything, you know that.”
“It’s been three years. Are you never going to ask me on a date?”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Joe did indeed ask Sam out. He asked her to be his date at the celebratory barbecue marking the successful grand opening of the Oasis. It wasn’t the most romantic start to a relationship
, but it was perfect for them. They had spent so many hours together over the previous few years that there was no need for any “getting to know you” kind of dates. They already knew and honestly liked each other.
Scott Mckenzie showed up at the celebration barbecue, too. His right arm was wrapped in a sling and he walked with a limp. When Joe asked him what happened, Scott would only say, “You should see the other fella.” Joe didn’t pursue it any further than that.
The party that day was bittersweet. The group had been so close for so long, but everyone knew that soon people would drift away to other jobs.
Tony Baston brought his daughter Amy, a happy three year old toddler now. She had been just a few weeks old at the first barbecue.
Jenny loved the barbecues for any number of reasons. There were always people who wanted to pet her and tell her what a beautiful girl she was. More importantly, someone always managed to drop a tasty piece of meat whenever she was near.
When the last of the burgers, hot dogs, corn on the cob, potato salad and watermelon had been consumed, Joe stood up and asked for attention.
When everyone had quieted, he said, “This doesn’t have to be our last barbecue, just because we’re done with the Oasis. Most of us will still be right here in Middle Falls. I am planning on continuing the tradition every warm Sunday until the last of you stop showing up for it.”
A small cheer rippled through the crowd.
Sam approached Joe, held his hand and laid her cheek against his shoulder. A bigger cheer came from the crowd, along with a few cries of “About time!”
