The Prodigal: A Ragamuffin Story (10 page)

He wasn’t sure how many of Mayfield’s citizens drove by or dropped in, but it was a lot. At one point, as they neared completion and Jack had run out of room to work, he looked down across the yard to see several couples dancing. He saw Father Frank backing Mrs. Calhoun carefully around the front yard in something approximating a two-step, heard her hooting with laughter. It sounded like maybe she had taken a sip or two of the red wine.

Jack’s father was sitting in a lawn chair with some other seniors from the Lutheran church like they were watching a Mayfield ball game.

The pastor of First Baptist, Brother Raymond, was out
directing traffic on the street, along with a couple of other deacons from that church.

As for local law enforcement? Jack saw Randy parked down the block in a police cruiser, looking sourly at the goings-on and maybe wondering if they needed a permit of some sort.

As Jack looked out at the street, which had been bumper-to-bumper all afternoon with onlookers coming and going and staying, he even saw Bill Hall’s red Ford truck pause for a moment to take in the scene.

From the roof, Jack raised a hand, a Texas wave.

Bill saw him.

Then the big red truck rumbled slowly away without another sign.

At last, the roof was finished. The men and boys on the roof looked at each other and let out a cheer. They clasped hands, patted each other on the back, sore but happy. People in the yard began to clear away the trash and old shingles.

It was done.

But it seemed to Jack that an occasion like this needed to be marked in some way, that people couldn’t simply be allowed to drift away.

He looked around, saw Father Frank, and had an idea.

“Will you bless the roof?” he asked. That seemed like the proper thing to do—if, in fact, their common labor of love had not already blessed it beyond need.

“Would you like me to do that?” Frank asked Mrs. Calhoun, with whom he was still dancing in some fashion.

“It would be an honor,” she said. “And maybe keep it from leaking.”

Father Frank made his way over to the ladder, put a foot on the bottom rung, climbed slowly and carefully up until his outstretched right hand rested on the new shingles on the eaves.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” he began. All of the Catholics present crossed themselves, as did some of the Lutherans. Jack followed suit after glancing around.

“Peace be with this house and with all who live here,” Frank said in a loud outdoor priest voice, and he paused while a handful of the Catholics, including Mr. Rodriguez, right next to Jack, returned the customary, “And with thy spirit.”

Father Frank made the sign of the cross over the roof. “When Christ took flesh through the Blessed Virgin Mary, he made his home with us. Let us now pray that he will enter this home and bless it with his presence.” He bowed his head for a moment.

Then he stopped, slowly crept back down the ladder, made his way across the yard to Mrs. Calhoun who was watching with hands clasped. When he spoke again it was in a quiet, intimate voice that people had to strain to follow.

“May he always be here with you,” he said to Mrs. Calhoun. “May he share in your joys, comfort you in your sorrows.” He reached out a hand, put it on her shoulder. “Inspired by his teachings and example, seek to make your new home above all else a dwelling place of love, diffusing far and wide the goodness of Christ.”

“I will,” she said, blinking. “I promise.”

“I know you will, Nora Calhoun,” he said softly. “You always have.”

Then he winked at her.

Father Frank turned to all of those gathered, workers and gawkers, all of those at the feast, Catholics and Protestants and unbelievers alike, and he raised his hand to shoulder height and gave the benediction. “And may the blessing of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—be upon you this day, and remain with you forever.”

“Amen,” they all replied. It sent a tingle up Jack’s spine, and for a moment, he found himself unable to move.

It was as if God had reached down and sparked something into being.

He wasn’t the only one who felt that something holy had just happened. They all looked around, blinking as though a flash had gone off in front of their eyes. But after the blessing, they slowly departed, stopping to shake a hand, to share a hug, to finish off a Lone Star. An old Hispanic couple started dancing again to the conjunto music. Mrs. Calhoun shook the hands of every person there, some of them multiple times, as if either her memory was imperfect or she had indeed been nipping at the red wine.

She stopped finally at Jack, and at first he feared that she was going to cry again. She showed every sign of it.

“I did pray for a miracle, Jack,” she said. “This morning.” She smiled. “Just a small one.”

He nodded. “That’s exactly what you got,” he said.

“What did I say to you the other day?” she asked. “In the store. About you coming back at a good time?”

He smiled. “It was a good time,” he agreed. “You needed a new roof.”

“I needed more than that,” she said, batting at him with one hand. Her face became suddenly serious. “After what happened with those men, I needed to believe in something.”

Jack nodded again. He understood that, more than she knew.

“Me too,” he said.

“And what are you finding to believe in?” she asked, the old Sunday School teacher poised.

“Well,” he said slowly, “after a day like this? I don’t know.” He looked around. “Well, to start, I’m beginning to think that most people are good, deep down.” He shrugged. “Where that comes from, that goodness, I don’t know. But that’s something to hope for, right? That maybe most people will do the right thing, given a chance?”

She looked around the yard, at the people saying good-bye, at her blessed new roof.

“Maybe,” she said.

“I am sorry that someone took advantage of your trust,” he said. “You’re a good person. You deserve better.” He shrugged. “Today you saw something better.”

He suddenly yawned, stretched. “But now I’m tired. And I’m ready to get off my feet.” He yawned again. “Come see me in the store?”

“I will,” she said. “Thank you, Jack.” She crossed her hands on her chest. “Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

He wandered the yard, gathering his tools, helping others load the final old shingles into a truck for the trash heap.

His aches had aches of their own now, but despite that, he couldn’t stop smiling.

His father folded his chair and said good-bye to his peers. He looked across at Jack, clasped his hands in the air like a prizefighter claiming victory, called, “See you at the house,” and departed.

Father Frank walked over to Jack. “So, Nora Calhoun was telling me that this barn raising just sort of spontaneously erupted.”

“I believe it did, yes,” he said.

Frank fixed him with a knowing eye. “One of my parishioners reports that it had a ringleader.” He grinned. “A head elf, I believe he said.”

“Well,” Jack shrugged, “maybe.” He resolved to remember that Mr. Rodriguez was a blabbermouth. “But then there were two people and things just started to snowball. And then nobody was the ringleader anymore.”

Frank led Jack away from a knot of laughing people, took him by the arm, and looked him straight in the eye. “Did you know anybody was coming to help you when you climbed up on that roof?”

Jack hesitated. He shook his head. “I—hoped. But I knew that I needed to do something. Whether or not anybody else came. I needed to.”

“Today was something,” Father Frank said. “It—surprised me.”

“Surprised you?”

“When the prodigal son limped home from his riotous living, his motives were mixed, at best,” Frank said. “He stumbled home simply to survive. But after that, after he got home, who knows how he changed?”

He fixed him with a long, appraising look as though he could see Jack changing in front of his very eyes. “Someone did a good thing here today, Jack.”

Jack looked around at the yard full of people, at the houses beyond. “I’d guess that somebody does a good thing in this town just about every day, Father Frank.”

Frank nodded. “You’ve got that right,” he said, then he held out his hand. “Well. Welcome home, boyo.” Jack took his hand and shook it twice. He smiled. “Buy you a pint?”

“Rain check,” Jack said, rolling his shoulders and stretching again. His body was in agony, and tomorrow would be worse. “I hear a hot bath and maybe some muscle relaxers calling my name.”

“Well, it’s a standing offer at Buddy’s,” Frank said. “Shayla and I will make you feel welcome. Or you can always come and have some wine at God’s house.”

Jack looked at him. “Isn’t that—you know—against the rules?” Jack held up his hands. “I’m not Catholic. I’m not, you know, even very much of a Christian at the present moment.”

“It’s not my table, Jack,” Frank said. “It’s not even the Church’s, God bless it. God’s mercy overfloweth. It goeth where it goeth.” He grinned and then he winked at him as well. “In any case, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Jack smiled back. “Maybe,” he said. “Anyway”—he climbed into the truck—“I’ll see you, Father Frank.”

They waved at each other. Jack backed out carefully, watching so he didn’t hit any people or fenders. Everyone was waving at him as he backed out. Everyone was waving at each other.

Someone did a good thing here today.

I’d guess that somebody does a good thing in this town just about every day.

Funny, he and Grace Cathedral had done good things for people on the other side of the world. A lot of good things. For a lot of needy people.

But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done a good thing for someone standing right in front of him.

The last time he’d helped somebody face-to-face.

And not to minimize doing good things for someone in abject poverty or someone without clean water. But he wondered if it might be easier for the rescuers to do good for someone they would never see again than to try to rescue those they see every day.

When he pulled in, his dad was sitting in the kitchen, something was baking in the oven. “Lasagna,” his father said. “Mrs. Riley sent it home with me.”

“Mrs. Riley used to be an amazing cook,” Jack said, suddenly hungry.

“Still is.”

At each of their places, Jack saw chilled mugs of what looked like beer. His dad was actually setting his mug down after taking a sip.

“I thought you didn’t like having beer in the house,” Jack said. That had been a hard-and-fast rule his whole life. No beer, no wine, no alcohol of any kind.

“I used to worry what people would think,” his father said, waving a hand. “And that I liked it too much. Neither are a worry for me now.” He smiled. “And I thought today, of all days, you deserved a cold beer.”

“Father Frank thought so too,” Jack said.

“He gave me the idea, actually.”

Jack sat, sniffed, raised his mug, drank. It was a blond ale, smooth, with a little tang of citrus. A great beer to drink after a hard day of roofing.

“Wow,” he said. He held up his mug to the light. “That is not Bud Light.”

“It’s called Fireman’s Number Four,” he said. “From a little
brewery in Blanco. Won a medal this year at some big beer contest.” He shrugged. “We’re not Seattle. But we do make some good beers hereabouts.”

“God bless the Germans,” Jack said, raising his mug.

“God bless the Germans,” his father agreed. They drank.

They didn’t talk, but it felt comfortable, each of them looking at the mugs, appreciating how good it tasted.

“Umm, Dad,” Jack said, as he remembered all the supplies he had taken from the hardware store that morning—nails and tools and probably more than he could pay for in a month of hard labor.

“Yes,” Tom said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he set down his Fireman’s Number Four.

“I think I, uh, took out a pretty big advance on my pay today.”

Tom smiled. He reached a hand across the table, patted the top of Jack’s bruised and blistered hand.

“Why don’t you and Mary argue about that,” he said. “It looks to me like Chisholm’s just opened a sideline in contracting. Anyway, I don’t think we’ve finished our year-end inventory. Who knows what was on those shelves and what wasn’t?”

“Tomorrow’s the thirty-first. I guess we haven’t finished yet.”

“New Year’s Eve,” Tom mused. For a moment he seemed a thousand miles away, then he looked across at Jack. “You made any big plans?”

“Not yet,” Jack said. “I’m holding my options open.” Elton might call; the White House might demand his presence.

“You do that,” Tom said. “Hold your options open.” He got that faraway look again. “Because I’m thinking it could be an exciting day.” He raised his mug, took another sip, and—because apparently this was now the thing to do—he winked at Jack.

Jack raised his mug in salute, drained it, and got to his feet. Lasagna was baking, and it smelled good, beyond good, but what he was really hungry for more than anything else right now was a long, hot bath.

J
ack woke suddenly at the sound of his name.

Someone was calling him. Where was he?

In his bed. In his old room.

What year was it?

He was very old, apparently. He couldn’t move.

He lay there for a moment, wondering if maybe he was strapped to the bed, and then he came to a better, more informed conclusion.

He could move. It was just better if he didn’t.

It was Monday morning, he remembered now. New Year’s Eve, a day after he’d helped put on Mrs. Calhoun’s new roof, two days after he’d loaded and unloaded three truckloads of timber and concrete and shingles.

A few years back, on the first day Jack had started lifting weights again as part of his regular workout routine, he’d started on back and biceps, and he had done way too much, gone too heavy, relived his athletic past in ways that were no longer wise or even possible. He was not the sort of person to do things halfway.

And he had awakened the next morning like this, stiff, sore, miserable.

This was worse than that time, though. This was back and shoulders, legs and neck and abs, every part of him that he could name and most he couldn’t, the cumulative effect of two days of hard labor like he hadn’t done since he was in college.

“Jack,” his father called from downstairs.

“Uhnn,” Jack answered. So that’s why he woke up. He rolled to one side, somehow heaved himself upright.

“Jack,” his father called again.

“What?” he said. Didn’t Dad know he was dying up here? What could possibly be so important?

“How many eggs do you want?”

Jack groaned. He checked the clock—7:35. Okay. He’d slept in. Breakfast questions had some validity.

“Two,” he called. “No. Three.”

He was in pain, but he was also hungry—starving, actually. He hadn’t eaten lasagna last night, but had gotten out of the bath, climbed into bed, and fallen asleep immediately.

Now he tried to get dressed and found that he could do nothing without it hurting. Pulling a shirt over his head hurt his rib cage, his shoulders. Pulling up his pants hurt his back, his biceps.

“This is what you get for doing good deeds,” he muttered to himself.

“It’s on the table,” his father called up.

“Coming,” he said. “I’m moving a little—ugh—slow up here.”

He moved gingerly down the stairs, crept into the kitchen, eased slowly into his seat.

His father smiled at him. “You shaved that little—” He flicked below his lip to indicate a soul patch.

“And put on some Wranglers,” Jack said. He groaned. “I am too sore to even think about pulling on skinny jeans.”

“That’s what you get for doing good deeds,” Tom said.

“I know,” Jack said. “Right? I never woke up bruised from a day in the pulpit.”

“Speaking of stepping in the pulpit,” Tom said.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Jack said.

“It’s just that I’ve heard a couple of folks might talk to you about saying a few words from the pulpit.”

Jack crossed his arms and looked down at the table. “At the church.”

“The Lutheran church,” his father said.

“Sort of Lutheran,” Jack said.

“Just so.”

“I can’t preach,” Jack said.

“No,” his father said. “Not preach, even. Just say a few words. Especially after what happened yesterday.” He pushed himself back from the table, got up to refill his coffee. “This town hasn’t had much to be hopeful about. And never much in that long stretch between the end of football and two-a-days.” He shook his head, although he was as big a football fan as had ever breathed.

“Yesterday was something, Dad. But most of us were there. We saw what happened.”

“But what did it mean? You could just say a few words about it.”

“I can’t, Dad. I don’t have any words.” He took a bite of his eggs, then another. They were perfectly cooked. “I don’t know what happened yesterday. How can I get up and tell people what to believe if I don’t even know myself?”

“Maybe you could skip the part about telling them what to
believe,” his father said, buttering his toast. “Maybe you could just say a few words from your heart.”

“I can’t preach,” Jack said for the last time, and a door in his heart swung shut. “I don’t think I’ll ever preach again.”

“Gonna make it hard to get that big church back if you never preach again,” his father said mildly. He picked up his spoon, stopped midway to the jar of grape jelly, pointed it at him. “Think about it.”

“I never stop,” Jack said. “Thinking. About any of it.”

His father nodded. “It’s the curse of the Chisholms. What should we have done? Why didn’t we do better?”

“I got that from you,” Jack said, and he realized his voice held ten years of stored-up accusations.

If he was offended, his father didn’t show it; he didn’t even look up from spreading his jelly. “And where do you suppose I got it from?” he asked.

Jack sat there, awareness dawning. Now he remembered those marathon Thanksgiving prayers, the admonitions in the shop to do things precisely the right way, the denunciations for even the slightest deviation from the accepted way of being.

“Grampa Joe,” he said.

Tom nodded, raised his toast to his mouth, took a bite.

“And I expect he got it from his father, and he got it from his, and so on, and so on,” his father said between bites. “All the way back to Adam.”

“But when you came after me in Mexico,” Jack said. “And since. You didn’t make me feel ashamed. Haven’t.”

“I thought maybe,” Tom said carefully, “it was time we broke that pattern. Smashed it to bits, even.”

“But how did you—” Jack had wondered about the difference he’d perceived in his father since he came home, the loss of self-righteousness, the gain of what he could only call tenderness.

It was a more personal question than he had ever asked his father.

He couldn’t possibly ask it.

“You seem—different.”

His father took a sip of coffee, set the cup down. “I believe I am,” he said.

“Then what—”

“I found out I was going to die,” Tom said. He raised his hands, palms up. “Simple as that. It’s a fine motivator.”

Jack looked down at his Maxwell House. Was it small-town truth serum? He took a sip from his cup, climbed out on his own limb. “But surely you didn’t get that diagnosis and then just decide you were going to be different. Because you are different, Dad. I hardly recognize you.”

His father took another drink, and this time he set the cup down hard, sloshing coffee over the side.

He bit his lip, looked down at the mess he made. For a moment, Jack thought his father was going to cry.

“Let me—” Jack began, reaching for his cloth napkin and beginning to wipe up the spill.

“When I found out that I wasn’t going to live long,” his father said as he watched the damp section of the table dry, “I gave up pretending to be strong. I gave up trying to do what was right. For a while, I just gave up, period.” He looked up at Jack. “I couldn’t bear leaving so much undone. For a while, I climbed inside a bottle.” He anticipated Jack’s look of astonishment. “That’s right.
Mary ran the store. I don’t know who fed me. Casseroles just showed up.”

“Dad, you—”

“I wasn’t afraid of dying. But I was terrified of dying without seeing you again. Without seeing Alison. Without making things right.” He looked down, ran his hand over the table. “Then one night I was drinking bourbon and watching Fox News and they were running the story about you. What you did. How the church threw you out.” He shook his head. “Mary thought you deserved everything you got, but something didn’t seem right to me. Angry as I might have been, I never stopped wishing things were different.” He shrugged. “So I called Father Frank. I told him I needed help.”

He laughed as he raised his cup. “And you can probably hear him now, can’t you? Sitting there, right there where you are now, both of us nursing our black coffees, my head pounding from a hangover. ‘The world thrives on bad news, Tom,’ he said to me. ‘It tells us to shape our lives around the bad news. We have to be converted from the bad news to the good news, from expecting nothing to expecting something. It’s time to expect something.’ He was talking about this bad news—yours, mine.”

Jack could hear Frank saying that. All of it. But one thing still puzzled him. “What is the good news in this, exactly?” he asked.

“My very question,” he said, pointing at Jack. “‘The good news,’ Frank told me, ‘is that you can help your son realize he is still loved after making a mistake. Because God knows, we all make mistakes.’ And he looked at me pointedly.”

“So—” Even though he was looking at his father, even
though he was hearing his words, it still seemed unbelievable that a person could change so monumentally. “What, exactly? You got tired of your bad news?”

“I got tired of living it and spreading it. Because I finally realized that when we are down and on our last legs, only the good news can save us.”

“But what is the good news?” Jack asked again, a little more agitated this time.

“That depends on the person,” his father said.

Jack glared at him. “Dad, if you hold up your index finger and tell me that the secret of life is that ‘one thing’ from
City Slickers
, I will mess you up.”

His father snickered. “The good news,” he said, raising a calming hand, “is that you are sitting right here with me. That is plenty of miracle for now. Maybe more good news is on its way. And maybe the good news is deeper and more profound than just your sitting there. You and Frank can hash that out a lot better than I can.” He finished his coffee with a slurp, set it down a little more gently than before, sat back in his chair. “But this is plenty. I never thought I’d see you again.” And he spread his hands to indicate Jack sitting there in front of him.

Voilà.

Tom’s cell phone rang from the hallway, and his father shot out of his chair, out of the room. Jack would not have thought him capable of moving so quickly.

“Speaking,” he said. “You did? When?” He checked his watch. “I’ll get us tickets on the”—he was checking something—“1:25 from Austin. Gets in at 9:40.” Jack could hear him writing something down. “Yes. We will. We will. Thank you.”

Tom was quiet and then said again, in a wholly different tone of voice, “Thank you.”

Tom walked back into the kitchen, stood behind his chair. “Pack a bag,” he told Jack. “Pack warm.”

“Are we going to Boston?” Jack asked. He couldn’t believe it. Didn’t dare.

Tom nodded, smiled with sad eyes. “Tracy said that we could see Alison tomorrow.”

Jack sat blinking. “Really? Oh, that is a cruel joke, Dad—”

“Really,” Tom said.

“And Tracy? Can I talk to Tracy?”

“I’d imagine you’ll have to,” he said. “I’m already mostly packed. We’ll need to stop by the hardware store, though, put up a sign—”

“Let me run in and do it,” Jack said. “I left my coat and hat there.”

“Okay,” Tom said. He seemed lost in thought.

“Dad,” Jack said.

“Hmm? Oh. I was just thinking. I’ve never seen Alison in the flesh. Only on television.”

“What?”

“I thought I told you I used to watch your show,” Tom said. “Watched it after church.”

“I thought you didn’t like my sermons,” Jack said.

“I didn’t watch it for your sermons.”

“Well,” Jack said. “Tomorrow’s New Year’s Day. We’re going to Boston, and we’re going to see my family. That’s got to be a good sign.”

“Jack—”

“I was an English major, Dad,” he said. “I know a potent symbol when I see one.”

“I just don’t want you to put the cart before the horse. You and Tracy will have a lot to talk about.”

“But we finally get to talk!” Jack said. “I’ve been trying to talk to her since—”

“I just don’t want you to put the cart before the horse,” his dad repeated.

“Okay, Dad,” Jack said. “Fine. Whatever. The horse is in front of the cart.” He got up and hurtled into the hallway, swiped up the store and truck keys from the side table. “I’ll be right back.”

He hoped it would be sunny when they met. It would be cold, sure. It was January in Boston. But she had always loved the outdoors. Maybe he and Alison and Tracy could go to a park. Maybe they could have dinner together afterward. He knew of a place where you picked out the food you wanted cooked, brought it up to the cooks, and they grilled it for you. Alison would love that.

She’d see. He was in such a good space. He knew what he wanted. Everything was going to be better. She couldn’t help but respond to that, right?

Three blocks toward town was the Taylor house. It was an old, monumental three-story with turrets—maybe the nicest house in town. James wasn’t just the mayor; he owned the bank, after all, like his father had owned the bank, and his father before him.

As Jack drove past, he saw a teenage boy out front throwing a football into a net. He must have been out there a while now—the grass around the net was littered with footballs.

The boy took a five-step drop, squared up his hips and shoulders, and threw hard into the net.

Jack stopped and rolled down the passenger window. “Nice toss,” he called.

“Thanks,” the boy called back without looking at him. He picked up another ball from the green plastic bin in front of him, dropped back five steps, threw strong into the net.

Jack started to roll up the window. Then he paused for a moment and called out, “You know, you’re squaring up your shoulders and hips really well. But you’re throwing a little heavy off the front foot. You look like Tim Tebow. Not in the good way.”

The boy had another ball in his hands, looked down as if he were going to throw again, then looked at the truck for the first time.

“Tim Tebow won the Heisman,” he called back.

Then he took up the ball again, prepared to drop back.

“When you start to throw,” Jack shouted, and the boy froze, “you want eighty percent of your weight on the back leg. Twenty percent on the front leg. And you transition to the reverse. Right now, you’re throwing with eighty percent on the front leg. It throws off your balance. Believe me, I know.”