From The Dead (18 page)

“The elementary school,” Blake continued. “Okay,
later.” He snapped the phone shut and announced, “Randy’s on his
way over with Sanders. Like old times, huh? Everyone else from the
team relocated after college.”

So most of Jesse’s schoolmates had departed and taken
their engrafted roots with them.

A transient community in its latter years, Hudson had
experienced an influx of white-collar executives who worked in the
Cleveland suburbs. Nowadays, families tended to move into the area,
stay less than ten years, and then transfer to positions in another
state. Jesse found it humorous that when he compared his
second-grade class’s yearbook pictures with those of his senior
class, 90 percent of the faces must have changed. Because his
father ministered at a church he himself had founded, Jesse and
Eden spent most of their childhood in this community and became
exceptions to the rule. Even Blake had moved to town in his
sophomore year.

When he caught sight of a duo that approached the
court, Jesse cracked a smile.

“Barlow! Look at you, man!” A red-headed beanpole,
Randy observed his old friend’s tan through wire-rimmed glasses
before he shook hands.

“You still live here?” Jesse replied. “Thought you
couldn’t wait to leave!”

“I took a job with an investment company downtown,
and the rest is history. I live in Twinsburg now,” Randy replied.
He jerked his thumb northward to the adjacent community. “Married
with two kids.”

“Married his boss’s daughter,” Sanders chimed in.
With Sanders’s hair dark as charcoal, Jesse remembered him as the
only guy in middle school who could grow full facial hair. His
stocky build presented a stark contrast to that of Randy or
Jesse.

“Do you have a wife too?” Jesse asked Sanders.

“
Had
a wife. We lived down in Dayton, three
kids, but I returned here after the divorce. One day you’re in high
school, dating half the cheerleaders who line up for you—next thing
you know, the glory disappears and you’re living back here.”

“You don’t look like you’ve changed much.”

Blasé, Sanders shrugged it off. “Ah, the usual stuff:
a few gray hairs around the ears, little more of a belly, and a
pain in my ass—but that’s caused by my ex-wife, who insists on
calling me every few months, trying to collect an extra check.
Claims the child support got lost in the mail.”

Jesse wondered how Caitlyn felt as she tried to raise
a son without a trace of child support. Granted, he’d had no
knowledge of his son; but to the average onlooker, would his
situation look like Sanders’s?

“So, Barlow, tell me more about that girlfriend of
yours,” Blake said.

“Good looking?” Sanders asked.

“Sure, she was gorgeous. A child star in some local
TV show.”

“Anyone I’d know?”

“Don’t let her hear you suggest she’s an unknown,”
Jesse said. “Her name is Jada.”

“Sounds like a Hollywood name to me. Jada what?”

“Ferrari.”

“Jada
Ferrari!
” Sanders remarked. “Sounds like
a lady who feels most at home between satin sheets in the heat of
passion.” A faint smile inched across Sanders’s face, his eyes now
lost in the clouds above. “A woman with the name of a car. Does
she
go zero to sixty in four seconds?”

Jesse forgot how crude Sanders could be, even while
sober. He opted to ignore the comment. “She isn’t on screen
anymore. She’s an assistant to Barry Richert.”

Randy snapped his fingers. “That’s the director
of—oh, the movie where the guy crashes through the stained-glass
windows with a kitten under his arm.”

“Right.” The things people remember. And not always
related to the plot.

“By the way, I saw you in a movie a few years ago,
walking down a sidewalk.”

“Been in anything else?” Sanders asked.

“Here and there,” Jesse replied. “Gigs are kind of
hard to come by. Lots of competition, even for the bottom
rung.”

More small talk, more fawning over the lifestyle
Jesse had once prized but, in the end, found wanting. When people
asked about L.A., they dreamed of glamour. How easy it seemed to
gloss over the reality of a struggle toward accomplishment and
simply focus on the rewards that Jesse never experienced. These
acquaintances treated him as though he had plundered a gold
mine.

At last, the reunion wound down when Randy checked
his watch. “Gotta go,” he said. “We were on our way to the auto
shop. Sanders’s engine is getting remounted and I’m his ride.”

Sanders landed a playful punch on Jesse’s arm. “We
need to get together and hang out sometime, bro. Brotherhood of the
bachelors.”

“Later,” Jesse replied without a commitment.

“I’d better head back to the store,” Blake said as he
watched Randy and Sanders turn onto a side street. “If I leave Mark
at the counter too long, the teenagers tend to stop by and scrounge
for ginseng samples.”

Jesse grabbed the basketball and the duo walked to
the car.

Blake patted him on the back. “Are you going to
church tomorrow? It would make Eden happy.”

“No, I don’t think so.” Jesse pursed his lips. “Maybe
some other time.”

As much as he had enjoyed these reconnections with
individuals of his past, Jesse wasn’t ready to show his face at a
church service, despite his status as an employee there. He didn’t
want to get absorbed in a crowd of random people. He’d lived most
of his childhood behind glass walls, feeling like a caged orangutan
on display. In his mind’s eye, he pictured glaring faces and could
hear the whispers.

The preacher’s son returned.
There he is:
the one standing alone.

Truth be told, it wasn’t the risk of other people’s
judgment he dreaded. Rather, something in Jesse wouldn’t
let
him show up at the building for a worship service. Coming home
marked a step in the right direction, but he no longer
felt
at home. He was an outsider. He no longer belonged.

And he would be a hypocrite. After all, if anyone
knew the mistakes he’d made in his life, he assumed he would be
scorned. He called to mind ancient cultures, where people like
Jesse were taken away and maybe even stoned. People like him were
outcasts, pictures of shame.

The gleaming church people could bask in God’s
acceptance. But when he evaluated his own life, Jesse was sure he
had lost God’s acceptance years ago. Watching them worship would
serve as a painful reminder of his spiritual solitude.

He didn’t need these folks to remind him of his own
faults. He was well aware.

CHAPTER 30

When Jesse walked into Chuck’s office two days later,
he found his father already at work on the computer. From a small
CD player on a bookshelf, the soft praise music of an acoustic
guitar ushered forth and brought a soothing ambience to the
air.

“Nowhere you’d rather be on a Monday morning, huh?”
his dad jested.

“Sorry about yesterday.”

“What happened yesterday?”

“I probably should’ve come to church.”

Chuck dropped his fingers from the keyboard. “Hold on
a minute,” he said. He came around and sat on top of the desk.
Chuck’s eyes spoke of sincerity as he concentrated on his son. “Why
are you apologizing?”

His father appeared confused. Jesse furrowed his
eyebrows. “I figured it was kind of expected for me to show up.” He
paused. “Wasn’t it?”

“No,” his father replied as though he couldn’t
comprehend what Jesse had suggested. But he snapped out of it and
patted Jesse’s shoulder. “Come on, I want to reintroduce you to
somebody.”

With few people at the large building this early in
the morning, they walked unnoticed through a series of halls. At
the opposite end of the church, they turned into a corridor and
knocked on an open door labeled: “Maintenance.”

Beneath the fluorescent lighting that stretched
above, a hefty man sat hunched over, his back to the door, while he
attached a bit to an electric drill. When he heard the knock, the
man spun around on his wheeled stool and peered through a pair of
bifocals.

Chuck spoke first. “Your assistant showed up, the
poor dude.”

From where he sat, the maintenance man scrutinized
Jesse through beady eyes before a glint appeared in them. Then a
wave of surprise washed over the man’s face. “Jesse, is that
you?”

Had he not caught himself, Jesse would have done a
double-take himself. “Mel?! You’re still here?”

“Where’d you dig up this guy, Reverend?” Mel
abandoned his wide view to meet Jesse and Chuck in the
corridor.

Hands on his hips, Chuck said, “Don’t ask me. The
poor sap came searching for Mel, begging for the chance to work
with our veteran staff member.” Chuck winked. “You know me, always
aiming to please.”

A man Jesse had known since late childhood, Mel had
aged a bit over the years, but the process had treated him
favorably. His forehead boasted more crinkles but nothing severe.
The last time Jesse saw him, the man had dark hair, which had now
retreated to a frosty white. It must shine against a summer tan,
Jesse figured.

“Look at you!” Mel let out his trademark high-pitched
laugh. “I can’t believe you’re the surly little fella who hid in
the bushes one day and shot me in the rear end with a paintball
gun!”

Jesse snickered as he recalled similar memories. He
had caused this man more than his share of stress. But with the
chunks of time Jesse had spent at this building each week, Mel had
become the kid’s prank buddy.

Mel shook his head. “Couldn’t believe the innocent
little preacher’s kid could inflict such misery. I had a welt for
days after that incident. Do you know how long it takes an old man
to heal?”

“Oh, buck it up, Mel!” Chuck quipped. “You were only
fifty years old at the most.” On his way out the door, he added,
“Can I trust this place not to implode once the two of you team
up?”

“Depends on if Mel’s figured out what he’s doing
yet,” Jesse replied.

“Come on, buddy,” said the maintenance man. He
wrapped his arm around Jesse’s shoulder and handed him a pair of
pewter-gray coveralls. “I feel inspired by that paintball incident.
I think I know the perfect spot to start your work today.”

* * *

Seated on the floor in a restroom, a rubber-gloved
Jesse scrubbed the fourth toilet in a row of five. Mel had
disappeared to tackle repair work outside. Located in the wing
where Sunday school and evening classes were held, the restroom’s
vicinity was quiet during the day.

Engaged in what might be the most disgusting job
available, Jesse had to grin. The task offered no resemblance to
the life he’d lived the past eleven years, and for that reason
alone he found it appealing. Granted, a maintenance job wasn’t one
he would circle in the want ads. Even without practical experience,
he was confident he could locate a job that featured tasks less
monotonous or mundane.

But amid the tile and porcelain, Jesse sensed that,
somehow, what he did right now would help somebody else. As a boy,
Jesse’s dad had explained to him that, although many people
described a church as a building, such a notion was inaccurate. The
church, his father said, is composed of people—and those people
could represent it in a positive manner or an embarrassing one.
Every Christian was critical, the preacher had told him.

His father was a kindhearted soul—which is why it
frustrated Jesse not to let go of the anger he’d kindled toward the
man.

Jesse remembered the calls his dad received at home
from a church member in distress, while other members pulled him
aside after church to talk about an alarming doctor’s report or a
recent victory. Chuck had a way with people, a unique ability to
discern where you dwelt on an emotional and mental level, and could
relate to you at your point of need. Rather than act like a
spiritual guru, Pastor Chuck responded to each individual like a
friend, leaned in to ensure every syllable would be heard. Like
Eden, Jesse never saw his father judge anyone; Chuck met them where
they were at in their lives. And from that point, however high or
low, Chuck would try to help that person.

Comfort. Understanding. Hope. That’s what he
ministered to people.

Maybe Chuck drew on the hurt he experienced when
Jesse’s mother died more than twenty years ago.

But Chuck didn’t take credit for the help he brought,
even when the community sought to bestow it on him. Throughout
Jesse’s childhood, his father had stressed the role of a minister;
he’d ingrained it into Jesse’s brain as he reminded his son over
and over: “When people get helped, it doesn’t boil down to me. It
boils down to the person who greeted that individual at the door on
their first visit; the person who vacuumed the floors earlier that
week; the person who gave an extra ten bucks in the offering plate
that covered the electric bill for that particular church service.
Those
people impacted the visitor before I ever got up to
preach. That visitor decided whether they’ll come back before they
ever laid eyes on me,” his father had said. “I have the privilege
of serving as that person’s minister, but you can trace it to those
church members’ acts of service.”

There it was. That’s why Jesse felt content to scrub
a toilet today.

For the first time in many years, Jesse thought about
someone besides himself.

He hadn’t seen Caitlyn or Drew in three days, and now
he missed them. At the thought of his son, Jesse couldn’t help but
smile. He sensed a rush in his veins. But however incredible his
reunion with his son, it paled in comparison to the in-the-flesh
miracle that occurred when he looked into the face of a child whose
genes were half his own. Jesse felt awestruck.

Maybe he would stop by their home that evening.