Almost Heaven (22 page)

“The past,” I said. “My charge's past while I was away. What happened?”

“And you think he would know?”

“He will know.”

I threw him and the imp skulked into the night. I stayed there with the woman, watching her weep, sensing the anguish in her soul. She kept a hand on her forehead, massaging her temples and going through a box of tissues.

Legally, meaning according to my rules of engagement, I could do nothing to aid her. But just the departure of evil seemed to soothe her. Or perhaps it was my presence that brought peace. I like to think that is the case with humans, that when those who are charged with their protection or ministering to them from beyond the veil appear, they respond physically to our presence. But I know that even those who call themselves followers of the Way sometimes do not put much stock in our reality. There is too much of the here and now to begin thinking of what might be going on in our dimension. If they only knew. If they only believed the love of the Almighty for them, in the midst of the suffering and depression.

Weary and cold, the woman staggered to her bedroom, the cover still draped about her. She paused at the nightstand and turned the radio volume low, as if reaching out to a friend to keep her company through the long night.

Callie fell into bed and drew herself into a ball and wept again. She shook and trembled. With the music playing softly, she finally gave up the struggle and sleep overtook her. A peaceful rest.

I stayed with her there until her eyes closed and her breathing evened. Watching. Waiting. Wondering if things I knew and believed about their world and mine would survive what I would discover in the days ahead.

16

The station got some local press at the start. The small article written by Becky Putnam listed the frequency, my name, and a little bit about my vision. “Allman says he wants to reach the people of Dogwood and beyond with music of the hills that will touch their hearts and give them a longing for something more.” I thought that was pretty good. With what little information she had and the time it took to snap a few shots, I was pleased with the outcome.

I didn't have the money to start a Web site, but I did give out an e-mail address where people could reach me. I had only one phone line, but I was given a used Telos interface from a fellow in Huntington who heard of the station. There is a brotherhood of sorts among radio people, especially those on the engineering side, and we all hate to throw out things that are broken when they might find a home and be useful someplace else.

I didn't have much time for fixing things, however. Running a station twenty-four hours a day usually takes multiple people. I had a grand plan to do local news every hour throughout the day by recording it, but I abandoned that pretty fast. The lineup consisted of music, running the big reels I had recorded, but sprinkled through the late morning and afternoon were half-hour programs. I was able to get local businesses to sponsor some. Others I just played because I thought they fit and I got something out of the messages.

My big production was the morning show that lasted about three hours, depending on my mood. I picked out a mixture of CDs and records I thought would speak to people. I used my own devotional thoughts and read the “Our Daily Bread” from RBC Ministries each morning. I had this idea that what people wanted from their radio was not a deep-voiced announcer or a slapstick show with jokes, but just a person to sit beside them with a cup of coffee and talk about life. Real life. The stuff people in the hills go through with kids who get in trouble and friends who get hooked on the bottle or some illegal substance.

Most people in Dogwood get up, do whatever chores they're supposed to, go to work, come home, have supper and a couple of beers, maybe do something with their kids, and go to bed and get up and do it all over again. Just an endless cycle. On Sundays, if they darken the door of a church, it's out of obligation. To many, God is not someone you know but something you try to get off your back.

My hope was that I could show listeners what it meant to allow God entry into life's every nook and cranny. My postulate was the old concept of input and output I had figured out as a kid. If you have clean wires going in and out of the transmitter, you have a power source to work from that can keep you going. God cares about every aspect of our lives and I wanted to show them that.

When I met with the Realtor from Charleston, Charles Broughton, one question he asked was “What is success going to be with this station?” At first, I thought that success would mean being able to stay on the air, pay the bills, and have a little money left over at the end of the month to buy another piece of equipment or upgrade the transmitter. Then, as I got to thinking about it, I realized success can't be measured in those terms, especially when you're working on something that has a goal of reaching people's hearts. Success has to be measured one person at a time, and since I have no way of knowing what's going on in hearts, I have to leave that up to somebody who does. So every time I got an e-mail or a phone call that said a certain song came at just the right time or that something I said in the morning made a difference, I'd toss a quarter into an empty five-gallon water jug in the corner of the room. I called it my “Success Can.” Some days when I got several responses, I'd just toss a dollar in.

Whenever I got tired or discouraged because somebody dropped their sponsorship or I felt like there was just nobody listening (and there were a lot of those times), I took a look at the can in the corner. I probably had no more than five dollars in there at any one time because I used the money for food and such. But the sight of it kept me going.

When businesses would ask what kind of listenership we had, I'd always tell them how loyal the people were to advertisers and how many showed up at the diner for the pork barbecue special the week before, but it got increasingly hard to sell time. I dropped my prices, but even that didn't help. I just kept getting up each morning. I think that's all any of us can do.

* * *

It was about this time, when everything felt like it was being held together with duct tape and paper clips, that Callie came by. I was sitting at the console when she pulled in, and the way she sat in her car let me know something was up.

I met her at the back door. She tried but the smile came hard. She kind of looked at me and then over to the freezer really fast. I asked her what was wrong and she shook her head and put away the food she'd brought.

“I baked you a chicken for tonight and put some biscuits in. Low fat. Just keep it in the refrigerator until you're ready and you can heat it up in the microwave.”

She finished storing everything and closed the refrigerator door. Then she stood there in the kitchen and I could see the little girl in her. What she must have looked like at Christmastime waiting to open a present she knew she wouldn't like. She just kept looking at her hands or the floor, I couldn't tell which.

“I can't do it anymore, Billy,” she finally said. Her voice was almost a whisper. “It's just too hard.”

“The meals? I can cook for myself now that the station is up and running.”

“No, it's not really the meals and the cooking. You know I like to do that for you. It's just . . .” She ran a hand up and down one arm like she'd lost all feeling in it. “I hope you'll understand.”

That sentence triggered something and set me off inside. I wasn't about to just let it go. “No, I don't understand. What's going on, Callie?”

She didn't answer. I heard the program wrapping up and I needed to manually start the next one—on Saturday mornings I ran some children's programs, dramas that I thought the kids would like. That's about the only time the phone would ring, when I'd do a contest and the same kid would call four times in a row to be the fourth caller. “Can you wait until I get through this break?”

She nodded and went into the living room. When I had the next half-hour program started, I found her looking at the pictures on the mantel. She held up a shot of me and my brother. We had lost all our pictures, but a friend had sent it to us from back in Buffalo Creek.

“Do you remember him?” she said. “Harless, wasn't it?”

“Harless Winslow Allman.”

“What was he like?”

“I can only remember flashes, like picture postcards in the brain. His strength. He played football and he'd come home with bruises and hurt ankles and the next day he'd be running for the bus. Tough as nails. And girls seemed to like him. He used to bring girls to the house and sit and watch TV, and he'd get so mad that I wouldn't go to bed.

“One night, just before he left for Vietnam, I had a couple of boys over to sleep out in a tent in the backyard. Now this is more than a flash for me. This is in living color. We were talking about the future and what was going to happen. And I said one day we would get to the point where you could walk around and carry a phone with you wherever you went. They asked how that would work, and I told them I didn't know, but a radio works and there's no wires coming to your house for that.

“The others said I was a blockhead and just laughed, and that's when Harless jumped out and scared us half to death and we rolled around in our sleeping bags laughing and accusing each other of peeing ourselves.

“Harless sat there and looked at us, like he wished he could be our age again. Maybe part of him wanted to go off to exotic places, but I think he just wanted to stay in the hills. I guess he had heard us talking because he put his arm around me and pointed a finger at the other two.

“‘This is a brilliant kid. You're going to be shining his shoes someday. He's going to cure cancer or the black lung or come up with an invention that's going to revolutionize the world. So stop making fun of him, you hear?'

“Those boys got real quiet after that. And when he left for Vietnam, it was like a part of me left with him.”

“Did he write?”

“He sent letters. I wrote him something just about every day early on. Then, as time wore on, I kind of let it slide, thinking I could just talk to him when he got back.”

A few moments passed and she put the picture back on the shelf. “I've never heard you talk that much about anything personal, Billy. Other than when you're on the radio.”

“Radio will do that. It kind of scares me a little, wondering what to say every morning. Wondering if anybody's listening. If I'm making a dent in anything.”

“You're doing a good job. People really appreciate the things you say.”

“You want to sit down?”

She moved to the couch, and I took Mama's chair and turned it a little from the TV. It had been a while since I talked with anybody at the house. We sat there and listened to the program playing in the next room. Rogers came in and hopped up beside Callie, and she stroked his head. Finally I couldn't take it anymore.

“So what did you mean? What's too hard?”

She looked out the front window and there was mist in her eyes. “I wish I could explain it, Billy. It's about you and me and the whole world.”

“No wonder you can't explain it.”

She gave a bittersweet smile. “I guess I lied. To you and myself at the same time.”

“About what?”

“The strings. I told you there were none attached when I started bringing you food. I truly didn't think there were. I thought this was something the Lord had given me to do and I was just going to do it for him.” Her chin puckered and she pushed a fist to it and kept going, her voice cracking a little. “But every week for the last two years I've come over here hoping things might change. I listen to you on the radio every day and I feel close to you. I want to help. But it's just a one-sided conversation.”

I rubbed my hands together and listened. When Job's friends came over, it says they sat with him seven days and didn't say a thing. Then, when they opened their mouths, they showed they weren't the best friends. So I just listened.

“I said the Lord was offering you a gift, and I did it because I care about you. But I don't think I can care anymore. Not that I won't pray for you and think about you and listen to you. I don't think I could stop doing that. But I don't think I can keep up with the cooking because of the feelings I have inside.”

She finally looked up at me and there was more than just longing for a friend there. The look scared me, shook me to the core. Rogers even stared at me, like he sensed something.

“Callie, I don't do very well with this kind of thing.”

“What are you afraid of, Billy?”

“Afraid of? I don't know that I'm afraid of anything. Maybe making the payments on the house each month and the land.”

“No, I mean inside. You talk a lot on the radio. About the Bible. You tell funny stories you've heard. You want people to have a relationship with God, but something's holding you back from connecting with people. You know, in the real world. What are you afraid of?”