Homefires (9 page)

BamBamBam.

We’d just finished supper that Saturday evening when the loud banging at our door startled us. Kirk frowned and arose from the table just as the banging recommenced.

“Coming!” boomed Kirk, his brow furrowing as he strode to the door. I washed red spaghetti sauce from Heather’s plump little fingers, removed her bib and lowered her to the floor. Her knees
bumpbumpbumped
their cadence as she crawled off to explore nooks and crannies from her knee-high angle.

Curious, I keened to hear what transpired between Kirk and the caller. Suddenly, Kirk’s voice projected – and it had that deadly quiet timber. “You’re welcome to come to my home anytime when you’re sober, Dad. But don’t you
ever
come here again when you’re drunk.”

“Y – you can’t talk li’that to me. I’m your
daddy,
you little—“

“
Shut up
, you sorry excuse for a man,” Kirk spoke through clenched teeth. “Listen up good. I lived in that mess all my life. Now, I don’t have to put up with your drunkenness. I won’t have you around my family like this. Do you understand?”

Kirk’s dad sounded like some kind of mewling, evil beast as he cranked up with more foul scorn. Heather had crawled right up to her daddy’s legs, where she now sat, her saucer-eyed gaze bounding back and forth betwixt Kirk and her Grandfather. At
Tom’s angry bellowing, her lips began to pucker and her chest to puff soundlessly in and out with panic.

“Heather, baby,” I crooned and rushed to lift her into my arms.

I froze inside at the violence I sensed,
heard
in him. Heather began to bawl. And to think – he
sired
Kirk. My Kirk. Heather’s father. Kirk didn’t deserve this. He looked around and saw Heather’s distress and clenched his fists as he whirled on his father.

“How
dare
you come here and upset my baby. Get out!” Kirk hissed. “And don’t come back unless you’re sober. Go on.” He gestured to the road. “
Git!”

He slammed the door in his father’s snarling face and Kirk – who rarely swore – cursed soundly.

I hugged Heather to me, cooing and calming her, fighting my own disgust and anger at the man.
Dear Lord, please make him leave quietly.
I knew God heard me when Tom turned on his heel, staggered to his car and spun away without another word.

Kirk’s shame was palpable as he plopped down onto the sofa. He propped his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his palms for long minutes. I quietly left the room and changed Heather’s diaper, put on her nightgown and lay her in her crib. I wound up her musical crib-angels that circled overhead to
Lullaby,
before I tiptoed from her room.

Only thing that’d shifted about Kirk was now he sat sprawled on the sofa, head thrown back like a dead man. Eyes sealed shut, nothing moved about him except when his body vibrated with each heartbeat. I stared fascinated at his hair quivering rhythmically, his shirt, his fingers – everything. Like a dead man, I thought, except for that volcano roiling inside him that threatened to blow him to bits.

“Kirk? You okay, honey?” I asked softly, lowering myself beside him.

Long moments later, he muttered. “Yeah,” still like one comatose. But his voice was strong. I took heart at that.

“Want some coffee?” I asked, needing to do something –
anything
to draw him from that dark place he now inhabited.

“Huh uh.”

I felt helpless, wanting to console him but not knowing how. I’d learned by now that what comforted ninety-nine point
seventy five per cent of the population did
not
placate Kirk Crenshaw. I had yet to find that particular formula.

“Well,” I said, shrugging limply. I stood, and turned to leave. “I’ll turn in, honey.”
Give you time to execute your own healing.

“It’s a terrible thing, Neecy.” The words floated out so softly I barely caught them. I turned to look at him. His eyes slowly opened, staring into a void somewhere.

“What’s terrible, sweetheart?” I asked.

He looked at me then, his eyes so desolate my breath hitched.

“Wishing my father dead.”

The next morning, Kirk was already dressed for church by the time I gave Heather a bath. I quickly stacked breakfast dishes in the sink then dressed myself and the baby. Kirk liked to get to church early. A true Type A clock watcher.

As we took our seats in the sanctuary, I noted Daddy and Anne’s absence. Again. Daddy had recently taken up smoking again. For Daddy, not a good spiritual sign. Anne was not, at that time, a particularly spiritual being anyway, so playing hookey wasn’t difficult. Trish, however, came in late and sat with us for the opening hymns. Then she whisked Heather away to the nursery.

The service was ordinary. Adult Sunday School Class. After that, three hymns, the offertory and sermon. Only difference was, today Kirk was
there.
Seemed to hang onto every word of the message about how we shouldn’t just be just
pew-warmers.

Preacher Hart, short and squat, yet peculiarly imposing, had really worked himself up by the time he read from the third book of Revelation, in verses fifteen and sixteen where John wrote to the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans. His face was red as he paced, holding his bible aloft, and his deep voice raised the hair on my neck: “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou
wert
cold or hot. So then, because thou art neither cold nor hot,
I will spew thee out of my mouth!”

He halted dramatically, pulling his handkerchief out and wiping his entire face while catching his breath. “Do you want God to spew you out of his mouth on that day?”

I felt Kirk shift beside me and resettle stiffly as the altar call was issued. Mrs. Tilley, her round hefty bottom nearly hanging over the ends of the piano bench, played and led the congregation in
Just As I Am
for the invitational. Standing now, I glimpsed Kirk’s hands gripping the pew in front of us, his knuckles white as chalk.

Why, he’s fighting conviction.
The realization shot through me like a bullet. He’d been adamant about attending church, even if sporadically, but he’d never in his life had a conversion experience. Me, I’d absorbed it all along, from the age of five when I’d knelt at this same altar.

The music ended. I heard,
felt,
Kirk’s relief that he was off the hook. For now.

As we drove home, Kirk’s mood grew blacker. I tried to ignore the thickening air and overcast emotions.

Ignoring Kirk’s darkness is like trying to walk through a hailstorm without blinking.

Finally, I could stand the roiling silence no longer. “What’s wrong, Kirk?” I blurted.

He was quiet for long moments. Then, angrily, “That’s
it.”

“What’s
it
?”

“I’ll not sit and listen to a preacher who preaches
at me.
Calling me a
pew-warmer.”
He huffed a grim laugh. “That
entire
message was aimed directly at
me
.”

I stifled a giggle. What an
ego
, I thought, gazing at him in amazement, knowing the futility of trying to convince him otherwise. I faced the front and crossed my arms.
Let him stew in his own juices.

I knew what was coming next. He did not disappoint me.

“I’ll never,” he snarled, “
ever
darken the door of that church again.”

We visited Dad and Anne that afternoon, to get out of the house. Kirk seemed especially restless. We’d spent our last two dollars Saturday afternoon on banana splits at the Dairy Queen so walking to see my family was all there was left to do. Lordy, those splits were good. Heather had smacked her lips ecstatically on the gooey rich treat and bawled when I said, “enough.”

We all sat around in the den talking, while in the background, the television, a new nineteen-inch, played an old forties flick starring Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. The Sons of the Pioneers sang
Tumbling Tumbleweeds
and I spent a nostalgic moment listening, remembering singing that song around MawMaw’s piano as her little fingers flew over the keys, with Papa, Gabe, Daddy and Mama playing guitars and harmonizing….

Then, Mama died.
I gulped back melancholy and quickly pushed the thought away.

“Where’s Trish?” I asked, gazing about, turning Heather loose to toddle around, dimpled fingers latched onto the furniture.

“Cleaning out the storage closet,” Anne replied. “She was supposed to’ve done it last week and didn’t.”

I remembered that Trish had been nearly down with a cold. “Wasn’t she sick?”

“Not enough to stay home from school.” Anne replied a bit edgy. “Trish felt like doing everything she
wanted
to do.”

I wondered what, exactly, Anne referred to but buttoned my lip. After all, I wasn’t around to know everything first hand. I hesitated to challenge Anne on disciplining Trish because, number one, she dealt fairly and lovingly with me. Number two, Trish said that would only make things worse for her. I still wondered at the
where
and
why
of the subtle cold war between those two.

“Well, I guess I’m just an old transplanted Baptist,” Daddy’s rising voice splintered my mulling. I noted his Walter Matthau candor – with the word “Baptist” tacked on.

Being of the Methodist camp, knowing what I knew of Daddy’s recent decline into former vices, the entire thing reeked of spiritual rebellion. I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms against what I knew was coming: Daddy’s straddle-thefence, balance-act, with one leg hanging in the Methodist camp, the other dangling in the Baptist. He wanted the best of both worlds.

His justification was that he grew up a Baptist and only switched to Methodism when he married Mama. So, dredging up his old Calvinism doctrine assured him of his eternal security – regardless of his slide back into the cigarette habit and an
occasional cuss word. And his stance on “once saved, always saved” as opposed to being “a lost backslider” directly related to how willing he was to give up his smokes.

“Why,” he continued testily, “there’s not a thing in the Bible about cigarettes.”

“There is about cussin’,” I mumbled under my breath as I arose and headed for the bathroom. Me? I believed doctrinal truth lay somewhere
between
the extremes of Calvinism and Arminianism. I relieved myself and on impulse headed for the closet used for storage, off the kitchen.

I found her sitting on the floor inside the dim chamber with one hanging light bulb, her back to me, surrounded by out-of-season boxed clothing, Christmas and seasonal decorations, magazines and books, an old end table, chairs with broken legs and endless paraphernalia usually labeled “junk.”

“Hey, Trish,” I said softly, warmed to be with her.

She didn’t move. Then I noticed her legs were drawn up and she hugged her knees.

“Trish?” I moved around her and gazed down into her face. “What’s wrong, honey?”

Nothing moved but her eyes, those huge soulful, bottomless pools of sadness, raining tears. They clutched at my heart. “Honey,” I dropped down beside her and slid my arm around her. “What’s wrong?”

Her head slowly moved from side to side. “I-I d-don’t know,” she whispered, holding back sobs, blinking with confusion. “I-I j-just can’t seem to get anything d-done.”

I looked about us at the clutter and my stomach knotted. My aversion to clutter was and is classic. In fact, Trish usually – the rare times I charmed Anne into allowing it – helped bail me out when things piled up, finishing the job in no time flat. No, today’s paralysis was emotional.

“Trish,” I gathered her to me, “I had these – spells, too, after Mama died, you know, when Daddy kept us away from MawMaw and Papa? It’s just nerves – frustration.” I rolled my eyes. “
Just
is not a word to put in front of
nerves.
It’s a tough thing to handle, Trish, but I’m here for you. And Daddy is.” The silence stretched out. I sighed heavily. “Would you like for me to talk to Anne?”