A Step of Faith (11 page)

“Sorry I took so long,” I said.

“Not at all. I love a long hot shower.” He lifted the lid off a pan, exposing a mound of scrambled eggs and patty sausage. “Help yourself. The sausage has a little kick to it.”

I loaded up my plate, then took a couple biscuits. Pastor Tim did the same. As I lifted my fork to eat, he said, “Would you join me in prayer?”

I set down my fork. “Of course.”

He bowed his head. “Dear Lord, we are grateful for our many blessings. We are grateful for our meeting and ask a blessing to be upon Alan. Please keep him safe on his journey. We ask Thee to bless this food to our good and us to Thy service, Amen.”

“Amen,” I said.

“Here’s some Tabasco sauce for your eggs if you’re so inclined,” he said, pushing the bottle toward me. Then he tore open his biscuit, layering sausage and eggs inside. “I love a breakfast sandwich.” He looked at me. “After we parted last night, I realized that I hadn’t asked you where you’re going.”

“I’m walking to Key West,” I said.

“Ah, beautiful Key West. That’s quite a ways. Where did you begin your journey?”

“Seattle.”

“My, that is a journey. What’s in Key West?”

“It was the farthest distance I could walk from Seattle.”

His eyes narrowed with interest. “Then the real question is, what’s in Seattle?”

“Memories,” I said.

He nodded slowly. “Good ones or bad ones?”

“Both. My wife was killed in a horse-riding accident. I lost her, my home, and my job. I just had to get away.”

“I understand,” he said. “I lost my first wife. Not in an accident, though. She left me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me too,” he replied. “Perhaps that’s why I felt so compelled to let you in. We’re kindred spirits.” He looked at me soulfully. “You know, I’ve wondered if it’s more painful to lose someone you love to death or to lose someone you love because she no longer loves you back.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“On the surface it seems an easy question. It should be much easier to lose someone who doesn’t love you, because why would you want to be with someone who doesn’t want you? But rejection’s not an easy road. A part of you always wonders what made you so unlovable.”

“She must have been crazy,” I said. “You’re one of the kindest people I’ve met on my walk.”

He smiled sadly. “
You
are being kind. But you’re not a woman, and the truth is I’m not much to look at. No one’s ever mistaken me for Ryan Goosling.”

“I think it’s Gosling,” I said. “But you’re being too hard on yourself.”

“No, I’m truthful. I just look at myself in the mirror each morning and remind myself that God looks on the heart.” He looked at me. “You’re a handsome guy. You probably have women chasing you through every town you walk through.”

I ignored his observation. “But you’re remarried now?”

He smiled. “Yes. Her name is Melba. Like the toast. We’re happy. A virtuous woman is more precious than rubies.

“So, Alan Christ-offers-son, what happens when you reach Key West?”

I shrugged. “Good question. When I left Seattle, I had so far to go that I didn’t think about it. I’m not sure that I really believed I would make it.”

“Think you’ll stay in Key West?”

I shook my head. “No. Maybe I’ll go back to Seattle and start my business up again.”

“Think you’ll ever remarry?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should. It’s not good for man to be alone.” A wry grin crossed his face. “We get into all kinds of mischief.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Anyone in the wings?” he asked. “Prospects?”

“Actually, there are two women . . .”

“Ah, that’s troubled geometry. The infernal triangle.”

I smiled. “One of them used to work for me. The other I met on my walk. I was mugged and beaten and she took care of me.”

“A good Samaritan. You can’t go wrong with someone like that.” Suddenly his expression changed. For a moment he didn’t speak, then he said, “Is one of them dark-featured, with long black hair? Ample-chested? Maybe she’s Greek. Very pretty, like a model.”

I was stunned. “You just described Falene. How did you know that?”

He shook his head slowly. “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’s something,” I said. “You just described her. How did you know that?”

He just looked at me, hesitant to answer.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“I just had a vision of her.”

“You just had a vision? Right now?”

He nodded.

“What else did you see?”

“She was wearing a wedding dress.”

“A wedding dress? Was she with me?”

“She was alone.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. “Do you have visions often?”

“No. Occasionally. That’s how I knew my wife was cheating.” He shook his head. “She ran off with the choir director.”

I was quiet a moment, then said, “Never trust a musician.”

He looked at me, then burst out laughing. “I suppose you’re right.” He sighed. “I’m glad you stopped by, Alan.”

“Me too,” I said. When we’d finished eating, I said, “Let me help you clean up.”

“No, you’d better get on your way. You’ve got a long walk ahead of you.”

We stood up from the table. I retrieved my pack from the room, then met Pastor Tim at the front door.

“I have something for you,” he said. He held out a small pewter coin engraved with the word
FAITH
.

“Powerful thing, faith,” he said. “All journeys are an act of faith.”

I nodded. “My father said I needed faith.”

Pastor Tim smiled. “Then there you are.”

I took the coin from him and put it in my pocket. “Thanks.”

“And about the vision. Don’t think about it too much. Just have faith that God’s at the wheel.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. I finally just said, “Thank you for everything.”

“My pleasure. God be with you on your journey, Brother Christoffersen.”

“And on yours,” I replied.

“Well said,” he replied. “Well said.”

I put on my hat and set out again, grateful for the man’s kindness.

Again, I had gotten a late start, but this time I was glad for it, as I felt rested. In spite of the pastor’s admonition, I couldn’t stop thinking about his vision. Falene in a wedding dress? This had to be a sign, didn’t it?

CHAPTER

Seventeen

People can become so blinded by their own perceived victimhood that they make victims of everyone around them.

Alan Christoffersen’s diary

The next town I walked through was called Pevely, where I came across a cultural relic of the American past—a drive-in theater. I couldn’t tell if it still functioned as a drive-in, but I doubted it. The screen was still there, but it looked a bit worn and tall weeds grew up from myriad cracks in the asphalt. The sign out front read:

Pevely Flea Market

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for drive-in theaters. I have fond childhood memories of lying between my parents in the back of our green, wood-paneled Dodge station wagon watching a Disney movie. I once wrote an essay on drive-in theaters in a high school English class.

You probably don’t realize that someone actually holds a patent on the drive-in theater. The original drive-in was created by a Camden, New Jersey, man named Richard Hollingshead. His idea was to create a “family experience,” a solution to finding a babysitter. “Now it doesn’t matter how much the baby cries,” the first advertisement for his theater read. I suppose Hollingshead failed to
realize that parents actually went out to get
away
from the crying baby. Not that it mattered. He still hit the bull’s-eye, just on a different target. The theater became a make-out haven for youth who knew they
wouldn’t
run into their parents.

Drive-in theaters always reminded me of what might be the most bizarre thing I did as a teenager. One midsummer afternoon McKale, one of her cousins and I were just sitting around the house bored when McKale said, “We should go see a drive-in movie tonight.”

The closest drive-in was a one-screen theater located in the nearby town of Monrovia. The movie playing that night was
Braveheart
, an Academy Award winning movie about Scottish rebel William Wallace, played by actor Mel Gibson.

That’s when a bizarre idea struck me. “I’ve got a better idea,” I said.

The three of us took some of my father’s old clothes, stuffed them with newspapers and rags, and then safety-pinned them together, making a life-sized dummy. We made its head out of a garbage sack stuffed with wadded-up newspaper. McKale dubbed our creation “Mr. Vertigo” in homage to the Hitchcock movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak.

Carrying our dummy and a ball of kite string, we walked along the wooden fence at the back of the theater until we found a hole someone had dug beneath it, and snuck inside. This is the crazy part. Slinging the dummy over my shoulder, I climbed up the back of the screen about a hundred feet to the very top.

The prank seemed like a much better idea from the ground, as shimmying seven stories up the rusted metal
railing was terrifying—especially when I startled a flock of nesting starlings who weren’t pleased to encounter a human in their neighborhood.

When I reached the top of the screen, I clung for my life with one hand and pulled the dummy from my back with the other, laying him across the horizontal beam that ran the length of the screen. I tied the end of our ball of string to the dummy and threw it down over the front of the screen to McKale and her friend, then shimmied back down.

When I reached the ground, McKale yanked the string. To our dismay, the string snapped six feet above us, dangling just out of reach. Unwilling to abandon our prank, I climbed the screen again, retied the string to the dummy and climbed back down. This time I carefully tugged the string until Mr. Vertigo fell over the front of the screen, hurtling headlong to his death. I think the movie viewers appreciated our prank, judging by the honking horns and screams.

McKale spotted a group of people running toward our dummy from the projection house so we ran too, leaving Mr. Vertigo behind to answer for our crimes.

Two evenings later my dad called me in to his den. “Did you drop a dummy from the top of the Monrovia Drive-in Theater?”

It was pointless denying my involvement in the affair, as the very fact that he asked meant he somehow already knew. Though I was afraid of getting in trouble, I was more curious as to how he’d found out. “Yes, sir.”

“How did you get the dummy up there?”

“I carried it up.”

“You climbed to the top of the screen?”

“Yes, sir.” I left out the part about doing it twice.

“That sounds dangerous.”

“I know.”

“Don’t do it again. I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

“Yes, sir. How did you know?”

“I got a call from the theater. There was a dry cleaner’s slip in the pants pocket. Next time ask before taking my clothes. I still wore those pants.”

“Sorry,” I said.

He went back to his paper. “You can go.” As I was walking out, he said, “Al.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did it look real? Like someone falling?”

“I think so.”

He nodded. “That’s pretty funny. I would have liked to have seen it.”

He never brought the incident up again. I think I liked him more after that.

Two miles from Pevely was the town of Herculaneum, named after the ancient Roman twin city of Pompeii. It was also the city where the fictional character Richie Walters in the musical
A Chorus Line
was born.

An hour later I passed through a town called Festus. (The name made me think of the singing deputy of
Gunsmoke
. I used to watch the reruns with my father.) Festus had a population of 11,643—double that of Pevely—evidenced by the town’s largest edifice: a Walmart.

As Americans stopped building town squares and piazzas, Walmarts took their place.

—Alan Christoffersen’s diary

I was glad to see a Walmart as I was running low on supplies. I bought fruit, a bag of mini bell peppers, a half dozen energy bars, a can of salted peanuts, a dozen flour tortillas, a package of sliced turkey, a bottle of Tabasco sauce, two large bags of beef jerky, Pop-Tarts, four cans of chili, and batteries for my flashlight.

For lunch I bought a V8 juice and a foot-long sandwich from the deli section. As I waited at the register, a large, unkempt woman stepped in line behind me, setting an industrial-sized bag of cheese puffs and a six-pack of beer on the conveyor belt.

The clerk was handing me my change when the woman suddenly clutched her chest and groaned out. “Oh, I’m having a heart attack. Call 911!”

The young woman behind the counter just stood there, frozen, her eyes wide with panic.

“Call 911!” I said. This time the young woman grabbed her phone and dialed. I helped the gasping woman to the floor in the middle of the checkout aisle. “How do you feel?” I asked.