Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One (25 page)

His kids (in three short
months he had come to think of them as
his
kids) huddled around him,
whispering, giggling, and trying to peek through the curtain at the
audience. Jack's pants’ pockets drooped beneath the weight of the
silver dollars they had given him. One of the youth, Trevor Rigby,
who played Rachel's father, had real ambitions toward the acting
profession.

He had informed them that it
was theater
tradition,
and this was
spoken as
though reading an ancient and sacred text, that each actor present
the director with a coin before going onstage opening night. This
was for
luck
, which was also spoken with the same unquestionable
reverence. Jack had fought back a smile and nodded
gravely.

Trevor took the whole
production very seriously, sometimes too seriously, but there was
no doubt the imminent performance would be all the better for his
dedication. Still, it had been difficult, as the boy had held forth
on the
traditions of the
theatre
, to take him completely
seriously as his fake mustache waggled on his upper lip.

Finally, they heard Pastor Ferguson take the stage and, after
welcoming everyone to the Christmas Eve service, and rushing
through the announcements, he introduced the play as the
houselights dimmed. Jack took his place in the dark and when the
bright spotlight washed over him (a gracious loan by the
Coaster Theater Playhouse
in Cannon Beach), Jack paused a moment before
speaking his first line.

"Ladies and gentlemen," his voice boomed
through the sanctuary, "Welcome to Christmas Eve…"

*

"Hey, Jack," one of the teens called,
shouting across the sanctuary and over the dull roar of people
chatting and bundling up to head home.

"Yes, Trevor?"

"
Welcome to the night before
Christmas!
" The boy called back
gleefully, and then ran for the door. Somewhere across the room,
Jack could hear Randy Brooks’ braying laughter.

He groaned, knowing he would
never hear the end of the flubbed line; his kids had assured him of
that in the short while since the play had ended. At least, Jack
thought, his was the
only
glitch in the performance.
The youth had performed flawlessly, getting a standing ovation as
the houselights came back up. Jack saw Carrie, still clad in the
pink bathrobe that was her costume as young Rachel, standing near
her parents and giggling at him, as Trevor and Randy fled. Jack
stuck his tongue out at her, and she responded by placing her
thumbs in her ears and waggling her fingers back. Jack laughed,
scooping up the two wrapped packages that lay on top of his jacket,
and went in search of Kathy Beckman.

It seemed like everyone
wanted to stop and shake his hand on the way out, patting him on
the back and saying what a great job he had done. Jack murmured
repeatedly that the
kids
had done all the work but
thank you, glad you could make it, Merry Christmas. Finally, he
glimpsed the back of Kathy's familiar black wool coat, just heading
toward the front doors.

"Katie!" he called, waving his free
hand.

She turned, searching the crowd until she
found him and then smiled, gesturing that she would meet him out
front. Jack pushed his way politely, but firmly, though the mass of
humanity that filled the front hall, and out onto the lawn.

"Hey," he said, gasping breathlessly,
"couldn't let you get away without your Christmas presents.” He
held out the two packages, both wrapped in the brightly colored
pages of the Sunday comics.

"Oh Jack, thank you!" Kathy smiled, taking
the packages, "your present is at home under the tree; I was going
to bring it tonight but I forgot."

They stood there for a moment, as the
congregation passed around them, walking to their cars.

"So," Jack said, "tear it up!"

"Now?"

"Sure! I'm going to be at Karl's all day
tomorrow, so this is my only chance to see you open it before
Christmas."

“
Okay!" Kathy laughed,
grinning delightedly as she ripped open the larger of the two
packages, her name emblazoned across the top in red felt
pen.

"Oh, Jack…" she breathed, lifting the black,
leather bound Bible from the wrapping, its gold-gilt edges
glimmering in the foggy light of the streetlamp. He had sent away
to Vermont for the Bible; a friend from college worked at the
Lewiston Bible Bindery in Woodstock and had gotten him a good deal.
The family owned and operated company made some of the finest
Bibles to be had anywhere in the country, covering their work in
flawless tanned calfskin. Kathy's was a Scofield Study Bible, with
her initials embossed on the front cover.

She ran a loving hand over the smooth
richness of the leather cover, slowly opening the flyleaf to read
the inscription, written carefully in Jack's small, slightly
slanting script.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and
lean not unto thine own understanding, in all thy ways acknowledge
Him, and He will direct your path. Proverbs 3:5-6"

A single tear coursed down the young woman's
cheek as she read the words, and Jack overcame an involuntary,
nearly overwhelming compulsion to reach out a finger and brush it
away. Kathy looked up at him with a strange expression, tilting her
head to one side and pursing her lips as though studying the man
for the first time. Then, wiping the tear away herself, she tucked
the beautiful Bible under her arm and nodded.

"Thank you, Jack. It's very, very beautiful." She smiled, "I
can't think of anything I would have wanted more."

Jack grinned and nodded.
This was so typically Kathy. Most women he had known would have
commented on the expense, or insisted that he shouldn't have, but
not her. She had accepted the gift for what it was - a thoughtful
expression of friendship on which value couldn't be placed. At
least, that's how Jack
hoped
she took it. He had
agonized over what to give his estranged friend's wife as a gift.
Struggling with feelings he was barely willing to admit to, each
gift seemed to take on some hidden motive or veiled meaning.
Finally, as he had sat, studying his own tattered Bible and
wondering if he should start looking for a replacement (the book of
psalms was held in place with a paper clip) the solution had struck
him.

What safer present than God's word?

Kathy would love it, of course, and it was a
perfectly appropriate gift from a pastor to a friend. Breathing a
sigh of relief, he had gone back to his study of Leviticus with an
air of reprieve and anticipation the dry text had never before
produced.

So, Jack had called Tom, his
bowling buddy from college and found that he
did
still work at the bindery,
and could get him a very good price, one that was only twice what
the young pastor could afford. Jack decided he would go a month
without root beer and ordered the Bible anyway.

Bill's gift had been much easier.

As boys, they had often
perused the knife counter at the Chinook Hardware store with great
avarice. They would stand, oohing and ahhing over the assortment of
cutlery from companies like
Shrade
,
Case
and, of course, the best of
all knives, the
Folding
Hunter
by
Buck
. The model 110 had been
the chosen knife of the oystermen of Long Beach since its inception
in the early sixties. For the boys of the peninsula, there was no
greater symbol of status than the ability to casually pull
the
Hunter
from one's pocket and take care of the task at hand. Usually
to the admiration and blinding jealously of one's
friends.

A quick phone call to Kathy
has assured him that Bill wasn't already the owner of such a knife.
A slightly longer trip down to the hardware store had found that,
indeed, the
Hunter
was still proudly displayed among its competitors
against the red felt backing of the knife case. The price tag was a
bit stiffer than he remembered it being in 1963, but still do-able,
just another couple of weeks without soda. Both the knife and the
Bible, which arrived just a few days earlier (soothing Jack's
mounting panic) had been hastily wrapped in newspaper comics and
slipped under his bed. Jack had chuckled to himself about this
later. Why a man, living alone, had felt the need to
hide
Christmas
presents, was beyond him, but that's where
his
parents had always stashed
the gifts, so where else could you put them but under the
bed?

Jack was pulled from his reverie as Kathy
reached forward and squeezed his arm. The familiar rumble of Bill's
pickup came from the curb.

"Thanks again Jack," she said. "It really is
a beautiful Bible. I'll swing by Karl's tomorrow and drop off your
present.”

Then she was gone, and Jack was again
surrounded by the last stragglers from the church, still more
congratulations, and the prospect of a long, cold bike ride back to
the empty cabin. When Martin and Bobbie pulled alongside him and
invited Jack home for hot chocolate and a movie, he had accepted
gratefully, closing his eyes briefly to thank God, again, for his
new friends.

*

Christmas dinner at the
Ferguson house was an event. Karl Ferguson, a widower for the past
eight years, filled his home each December
25
^th
with
his two daughters, their husbands, and several rambunctious
grandchildren ranging in years from three to ten. The overall din,
when woven with the melodious crooning of Bing Crosby's
White Christmas
album, blaring scratchily from the old turntable, hovered
somewhere just below deafening.

Karl sat in his overstuffed easy chair,
quite obviously the king of all he surveyed. He bellowed orders to
the kitchen staff and sneaked sweets to the children when he
thought their mothers weren't looking, usually in reward to their
sneaking Grandpa some sampling from the kitchen.

Jack spent most of his time bustling over the oven with Karl's
daughters, Lisa and Jan. He had promised to cook the late Mrs.
Leland's famous oyster dressing, to accompany the turkey, and so
spent the afternoon elbow deep in ingredients, chopping onions and
celery and occasionally dashing into the living room to catch a
favorite scene from
It's a Wonderful
Life
.

Capra's film, he learned, was an
undisputable tradition in the Ferguson household. The daughters
amused themselves, and Jack, by shouting out key lines in the
dialog a moment before the actors spoke them; this was good for a
chuckle from everyone but their father, who shouted dire threats
from his padded throne.

One of the children, a small fellow with
unruly blond hair and conspicuously missing incisors, entertained
Jack with the same joke at least a dozen times over the course of
the afternoon.

"What do a reindeer and a snowball have in
common?" the child would ask gleefully, his breath whistling
through the gap in his teeth.

"I don't know," Jack would cry, "what do a
reindeer and a snowball have in common?"

"They're both brown," the boy would shriek,
"except the snowball!"

With this the child would either run,
screaming into the other room, or collapse to the floor, writhing
in a breathless fit of mirth at his own wit. Jack had no idea what
the joke meant, but laughed harder with each telling until,
finally, one of the daughters excused herself from the kitchen to
go have words with her father, regarding his excessive allotments
of candy.

The other high point of humor came from
Travis, the oldest grandchild who, at ten, had a slightly more
advanced wit. He would occasionally call from the living room,

"Hey, Mom, can I have a dog for
Christmas?"

To which both mothers, and anyone else
present, including Jack, would shout in response, "No, you can have
turkey like everyone else!"

By the time said turkey was ready to enter
the oven, Jack's head was ringing, and he had to sneak into the
bathroom and raid Karl's aspirin bottle.

The barely restrained pandemonium of Karl's
home was a new experience for Jack. His own parents, though loving
and supportive of their only child, wouldn't have thought to yell
from the kitchen to the living room any more than they would have
considered running naked down Main Street on Christmas morning.

Still, Jack was having a wonderful time.

Coming from the bustling camaraderie of his
college dorm to living alone in his little cabin had been something
of a shock.

He hadn't realized how much he missed having
people around in a casual setting, until he had spent the day with
his pastor's family.

*

Soon the enticing smell of roast turkey and
oyster dressing filled the house, mingling with the sweet-spiced
aroma of pumpkin pies and buttery garlic potatoes. The children
were herded from various rooms and closets, hands were washed, and
everyone found a seat around the long, oval table in the Ferguson
dining room.

A framed picture had been set on the
polished ledge of the china cabinet, and Jack didn't need to ask
whom the smiling matron in the photo was. He watched as Karl, who
sat at the head of the table, glanced at his wife's image, and then
from one beloved face to the next, treasuring his gifts in the
smiles of his children and grandchildren. He winked at Jack as
their eyes met, his own glistening, and then stood, setting the
long carving knife and fork beside the steaming turkey, and held
out both hands. Wordlessly the family joined together and Jack
found himself a part of their circle, a tiny, damp hand wiggling in
his right, a strong, calloused one gripping his left.