Bo's Café (25 page)

“Then I put down the album and stared at the stranger on my couch. He looked old, empty, and tired.

“Over time I had succeeded in convincing him that he wasn’t the man in that picture. I’d taught him he was a hollow failure
whose highest aim should be to try, over a lifetime, to earn his way back into my favor. For years I’d seen him as weak and
in need of my control. In that moment I gained a glimpse of how much I had hurt him, forcing him to become that hollow man.
But I wouldn’t allow myself to stay there. For I had lost the ability to allow myself to hurt for him. To do that, I’d have
to face my own sins. Oh, and, dear one, I was not ready for that. But from that moment on, it began to haunt me.

“Eventually God sent me an older woman who had the courage to ask, ‘So, Cynthia, how does Keith’s failure reflect on you?’
In a moment I realized that my own deep shame had caused me to be publicly embarrassed by my husband. The pain from his actions
had left a long time ago. I wasn’t a victim of his sexual failure; I was the victim
of my own shame
. My friend began to help me uncover the lies that would cause such a distorted nine-year-long response.”

A waiter has been refreshing iced tea glasses around the table. He is taking his time, drawn into the story.

“Thank you, Cynthia,” Lindsey says, reaching out for my hand. “I do not want to go down that road.”

Cynthia puts her hand on both of ours. “That’s why we’re here.”

I feel a wave of gratitude for this place, for these people. “I’ve got to believe,” I say, “there are a whole lot of people
who need friends like this.”

“No doubt,” Andy answers. “The writers of the New Testament talked a lot about it. They actually imagined churches that would
be this way.”

I answer quickly. “Not likely.
I’ve
never seen churches like that.”

“
I
have,” Hank says, coaxing ketchup out of a bottle with a french fry.

“You’re kidding yourself, Hank,” I say. “Church doesn’t work that way. They’re institutions. And what self-respecting pastor
would hang out with a crowd like this? Too much risk to his reputation.”

Andy tilts his head and says, “Well, now, that’s odd, because I’d swear I see
Carlos
here almost every week.”

Carlos says nothing; he just grins back at me.

“I’m sorry, Carlos. That was a stupid statement. Sometimes I forget you’re a pastor.”

“So do I,” he responds. “It’s something I’m working on, though.”

“But you’re not like this at church, are you?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, genuinely puzzled.

“Well, I just mean, how do you reconcile, I mean, how much does your church know about some of what you shared with me that
day a while back. You know, I mean… they don’t know about the way you are around here—do they?”

Carlos is suddenly very serious. “Steven, do you think we’re doing something wrong here?”

“What?” I ask.

“Is Jesus happy with what goes on here in this little gig? Is this right and good, what we’re doing?”

“I think as right as anything I’ve ever done.”

“Then you tell me, Steven, why wouldn’t this be fit for a church?”

I go silent, not wanting to make a bigger fool of myself.

“Steven, this is not a game, man,” Carlos says, leaning in to me. “We’re not playing hooky, you know? Carlos has to be the
same cat in a hotel on the road as he is praying in front of people on Sunday. Otherwise we’re just playing
dress-up
, man. This is me, Steven. I don’t get no more religious than this. Lotsa people probably wish I would. I just don’t think
God is one of them. You know?

“Listen, we don’t need places like this to become more like church. We need churches to become more like this place. You know?”

“I think I do, Carlos. I’m sure sorry for what I said earlier. You’re as self-respecting a pastor as I’ve ever known.”

“Thanks, man. That means a lot to me.” Carlos smiles warmly.

“So, Carlos, does everyone on the deck crowd go to your church?” I ask.

“Oh, no, man, are you kidding? Would you want to go to church with Hank?”

Everyone laughs, and Hank just nods sheepishly.

We are interrupted by Bo shouting something to an employee, then laughing his big, barrel-chested laugh. It seems to signal
the end of our time together. Carlos says his good-byes. Hank takes our pile of cash and debit cards up to the front register.
Cynthia stands up, gives Andy and me big hugs, and then walks over to my wife and sits next to her.

“How are you feeling about all this, Lindsey?”

“Hopeful, I think.”

“Lindsey, this whole regaining of trust doesn’t come overnight. There will be some hard times. Steven will fail again. He
will explode in anger again. And you’ll feel the same fear all over again. But something else is happening too. Your husband,
I think, is beginning to humble his heart. So God is now free every moment to let his new story begin to dominate his experience.
That will change everything.”

Standing behind my wife as Cynthia says this, I put my hands on Lindsey’s shoulders and say, “I want to say this in front
of you guys. Lindsey, you have my permission to let Cyn or Hank or Andy or anybody know when you think I’m starting to get
out of control. No more secrets. No more hiding.”

Cynthia adds, “You’ll need to find others, who can stand with you as you begin to risk learning how to open your heart again.
I’d be honored to be one you can grow to count on. This doesn’t have to take nine years. We just didn’t have anyone. You guys
have all this in front of you. You just have to let others care for you.”

Lindsey grasps Cynthia’s hand. “Thank you, Cynthia. You’ve been great. This is all so new. I don’t know what’s coming for
our family. I’m hopeful, but it’s scary too.”

For a moment all the strangeness returns. This is all because of me. Everyone’s stepping to the plate to meet with my wife
because of what
I’ve
done. I feel like a recovering monster, still capable of wiping out a community with a single swipe. It’s hard to believe
this new identity when I am daily faced with the living consequences of the old one.

But I look over at Andy. He’s smiling at me. I’ve learned the meaning behind that smile.

Don’t be afraid. I know who you are. You know too much to listen to the lies now. Nothing to come can change that. I’ve got
your back.

I smile back.

Thank you. Thank you for being my friend.

(Friday, December 4)

The last few years I’d grown to really dislike Christmas. A whole month to magnify how unhappy Lindsey and I were. A month
to regret. A month to bluff. This season is different. The pressure and tension are mostly gone.

Last Saturday, I actually put up Christmas lights out front—by myself. First time ever. As a kid, Dad always did them, by
himself. I could stand by and watch if I wanted, but I always felt like I was in the way. I could get him a hammer or steady
the ladder, but I was never allowed to put up the lights with him. By the time I got in junior high, I just avoided the whole
painful event. I think he was just insecure about the whole deal. Mr. Magnusson, across the street, always had this incredible
animated display. He had deer with moving heads before you could buy them in the stores.

In recent years I’ve always had neighborhood kids string up the lights for money. Not this year. I put ’em up. They’ve looked
better. It definitely looks like a rookie put them up. But I like them kind of loosely hanging there, a little uneven, but
happy. Kind of like our lives now. Not so tied down—like our old displays: they were nice and neat-appearing for the neighbors,
but stiff, tight, and cold if you got up close. And I didn’t use those trendy white twinkle lights. I went out and found some
of those big, beautiful, bright, old-school bulbs. Andy decks out some of the boats in the marina with them. He says they’re
C9s. He tells me they’re the Christmas bulbs the apostles used back in the day.

This afternoon Andy and I are once again in the Electra. We catch the 405 and take the off-ramp up into the familiar hills
overlooking Marina del Rey and Venice. Once again he parks the car, facing south, on the same bluff as the first time we came
up here. He turns off the lights and then the engine. He takes a long draw from his half-finished cigar, blowing an impressive
smoke ring into the cool evening air. I am wearing his Dodgers warm-up jacket. His accommodation to the weather is a long-sleeved
T-shirt under his ever-present Hawaiian shirt.

“So… ?” he tosses out into the night air, as if I’m supposed to fill in the rest.

I take the bait.

“Andy, do you know the first evening we came up here, I still wasn’t sure who you were, or what you were up to? I thought
to myself,
This is how it happens
.
You hear about it all the time. ‘Promising executive chopped to pieces by serial ax murderer.’ ”

After another smoke ring he replies, “Do you know that first evening, I wasn’t completely certain I wasn’t wasting my time?
You, my friend, were a real piece of work.”

“Me? I wasn’t the one acting all Nostradamus-like. You could have told me about the name tag right away, but no-o-o! You wait
until I threaten to call the manager!”

“Oh, that was poetry!” Andy slaps his knee. “I was playing you like a Gibson Hummingbird, I was.”

Then we are quiet, content to look out over Los Angeles at night. Looking down into the basin toward the ocean, I try to guess
which lights might belong to Bo’s Café. The last six months, since we all met that afternoon on the deck, have radically changed
my whole world. It’s been the best six months of my life.

Andy and I continue to meet. I’m now a regular at Bo’s. I’m even bringing a friend from work on occasion. Lindsey and I are
now part of Carlos’s church in Hermosa Beach. And I am slowly learning to believe this new DNA God built into me. Lindsey
is slowly learning to trust again. I am still more than capable of returning to the old lies. And when I do, I can still hurt
my wife and anyone around me. But there hasn’t been a single day when I’ve walked out to the parking lot feeling like I can’t
go home.

I rest my hands behind my head. I am searching for words. I want to say something that will convey just how much he has meant
to me. But everything sounds trite and insufficient.

“So what have you learned since we first came up here?” he asks.

I pull my gaze away from the lights and look over at him.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Fair enough. Then give me something you’re learning right now.”

“Well, first, I owe you about two hundred apologies for all the arrogant things I said and thought about you. I had you pegged
for the longest time as an eccentric, kindly loser. Fascinating, insightful, but still a bit of a loser. Andy, I gave myself
permission to discount about half of what you were telling me just because of where you worked, how you dressed, where you
lived. How could anything you might say possibly apply to me?”

Andy nods and grins. “I think I knew that from the first evening.”

“Hey, Andy, you got a few more minutes? There’s someone I’ve been trying to help at work.”

“Sure, I’m just a middle-class guy working at a marina. What else have I got to do? Go home and watch reruns of
Cops
?”

“You’re not ever going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Her name’s Meagan. She’s kind of a whiz kid. Until recently she was a designer down on the first floor. But this kid’s got
incredible talent. She was the lead on our last two big video-game best sellers. Last year she took her team through a design
concept for a hockey game that has already gotten out into the market. It’s actually started to change the way animators describe
movement. She can’t be twenty-five.”

Andy sits up. “It’s about time you people got someone improving that. The animation in most games looks like ‘Great Moments
with Mr. Lincoln’ at Disneyland back a few years. Lincoln would bend his arms in ways that weren’t humanly possible. He was
like Gumby in a stovepipe hat. I’m sure he frightened the children. He always freaked me out.”

“Uh… stay with me here, Andy. Anyway, this kid’s a mess. She’s more arrogant than me. If she wasn’t so talented, she’d already
be gone. Meagan’s already had run-ins with several executive team members. Last month she publicly called out the head of
operations to fix a ‘ridiculously flawed system’ or she’d go elsewhere. Visratech doesn’t want to lose her, but she’s getting
increasingly hard to keep.”

“So?”

“So, the kid comes to me two weeks ago. Walks into my office and says, ‘Mr. Kerner, I think I need your help.’

“Inside I’m thinking,
My help? I’m the one who’s about to have to can you.

“The conversation goes something like this:

“ ‘I don’t know if word’s getting back to you,’ she says, ‘but I’m not doing well with the big dogs.’

“ ‘I’ve maybe heard a few things… in passing.’

“ ‘Well, anyway, Mr. Kerner, I kind of watch you.’

“ ‘You do?’

“ ‘Yep. I do. You didn’t used to come down to the first floor much. And when you did, you always had this condescending, forced
smile. Like you were thinking,
Well, aren’t these little people working hard
.
Bless their hearts, each and every one of them.’

“ ‘Speak your mind. Don’t hold back, Meagan.’

“ ‘What I’m trying to say is that something’s changed. You hang out. You don’t have that stupid smile as often. You don’t
come off like you’re better than us. You ask us for help. And you’re starting to listen to us.’

“ ‘Thanks, Meagan. I think.’

“ ‘So I’m thinking,
If I’m gonna have a chance to make it here, maybe this guy can help me
.’

“ ‘You want
my
help?’

“ ‘I know you’re really busy. But I’ve got a chance to do something I’ve wanted to do all my life. And now that I’m here,
I’m screwing it all up. I always have, Mr. Kerner. Will you help me? I can’t fail at this.’ ”