How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
Sometimes folks don’t believe, when I share the story about learning to drive. By the time I came along, my dad was retired. We did odd jobs. And I do mean odd. One job my dad did was trimming out under growth. Someone from the forest service would go in and mark trees they wanted cut and we would cut them. This one job site was back in a holler; I’m sure daylight never made it to.
It was a log road. A simple dirt road carved out by a bulldozer just wide enough for, well a bulldozer. On one side was a hill that any Billy goat would appreciate. The other side was the embankment of death. A ravine, with to my teenage mine, no bottom.
I can’t fully remember why dad needed me to drive. Maybe he got too hot and didn’t feel good? I can’t remember where mom was.
It was all up to me to get us out of No Sunshine Holler.
Drive or die.
If you read some of my work, you read a post that I was afraid of failure. I am. My best friend and I have tried exploring where this came from. Does ‘having to do something’ out weight the fear? Or you realize that the fear is there do it anyway?
Oscar’s weekends were like gold. He needed them in order to decompress and regroup for the week ahead. He had just gotten up on Saturday morning, Esther and he had plans. There came that all too familiar pounding at his door. There stood his mother and his brother. “What do I owe this pleasure?” He said sarcastically as he let them in.
“Can’t a mother check on her son?” Pam sat in one chair and Otis plopped in the other.
“Did I not ask you that if you sat in one of my chairs, act like you have some manners?” He scolded his brother.
“Is she here?” Pam asked.
“As if it were any of your business;” Oscar growled. “But she is at home.” He pointed out the door toward her house.
“Well, I see that Brother Evan’s talk with you did no good. Satan really has a hold on you.”
Oscar sat on the couch, “all that man succeeded in doing was cause me to question my choice of churches.”
“Dancin’ is a sin.” Pam scolded.
“No it isn’t. There are a multitude of examples of dancing in the Bible; both pro and con. It is how you do the dancin’ that matters.”
“I think this woman is pulling you away from your true callin’.”
“Let me make this crystal clear. I am not marrying Doris. I am not having children. God has never placed it on my heart to have children. I DON’T WANT THEM.” He emphasized without shouting.
His mother’s face turned fifty shades of red. She was livid. “How can you say that? Babies are God’s precious gifts to us.”
“And you might be right. But if I don’t want to receive God’s special gift for me and end up screwing up another human life; what have I done to glorify God?”
“Your dad wouldn’t approve.”
“Don’t bring dad into this.”
“We had the two of you.”
Otis grinned from ear to ear.
“And I’m glad you did mom. For the most part, I like my life. But I’m not going to bring another human being into this world to screw up their life.” His stomach seized. He wouldn’t show the pain he felt on his face. The last thing he wanted them to know was that their plan to break him was working.
“You would make a great dad.”
“Yeah boy.” He scoffed.
“This tinnitus is God’s punishment.” She proudly puffed up at her comment.
Oscar felt like she hit him in the chest with a baseball bat. What kind of messed up b.s. was this? The door bell rang, he opened the door to Chaz. What the ..? This was a different kind of shock. Chaz’s cruiser was parked in Esther’s drive. “I’m sorry to bother you. This is kinda embarrassin’. Could I use your bathroom? I knocked at Esther’s but she didn’t answer.”
The cop that wanted to whoop him was now wanting to use his bathroom?
Oscar remembered his manners, “sure.” He walked Chaz out of sight to show him the door. When he stepped back into the living room his mother started, “have you had sex with her?”
“That is none of your business?”
“Everyone in town is talkin’ about what a whore she is. That’s why she had to move from the big city. She’s a filthy whore.”
Oscar was getting more and more upset.
“Oscar, thanks man.” Chaz walked back into the living room. “I drank one too many cups of coffee this morning.”
“You’re welcome.”
Chaz locked eyes with Oscar for a brief moment. “How’s our girl?” He plopped his hand on Oscar’s shoulder. The sound of someone thumping a watermelon vibrated through his ears. Chaz gave his shoulder a slight squeeze.
Now here is a man that could break bones. Oscar thought. What was Chaz up too? He finally answered, “she’s good.”
Pam scoffed.
Oat grabbed his crotch, snorting.
Oscar opened the door for Chaz. Once Chaz was clear the door, Oscar looked at his family, “get out.”
His mother didn’t move, “God told me you are to marry Doris!” She screamed. “You are to help her get her children back! You are to get her a job at that school you work at!”
“So none of this is about me and Esther? It’s about you. You provin’ to Doris that you can bend the world to your will. Be Lady Bountiful.”
“GOD TOLD ME SO!” She screamed.
“Did God also tell you that a convicted felon can’t work at a public school?”
“Lies all lies! Doris was set up by the dirty cops in this town.” She gestured at the door. Supposedly at Chaz.
Esther and Oscar were cuddled up on the couch. She was lying in her favorite spot. Listening to the beating of his heart. Occasionally, she would open her eyes only to see the rain still pouring down. The brick wall of his house was a rainy blur.
“How do you think that window would look with a window seat?”
“What made you think of that?” He asked.
“I’ve always wanted one. I think they are romantic. But I wonder if it would eat up too much of the living room?”
“It would need to be big enough for both of us.” He suggested playfully.
She snuggled into him a little deeper.
He shuffled slightly under her. She could feel his chest move, as if he was about to speak. But he didn’t. He did it again. She wasn’t going to push him. Finally, after several minutes, “I got fitted for a hearing aid today.” He stopped. Was there more?
So she asked, “is it a little or a lot?”
“There is a little hearing loss in my right ear. My left one is the bad one. I have tinnitus. It has been spiking at night. Thought I might need to do something about it.”
“Is it part of your childhood?”
“The ENT didn’t think so. She thought it was from an untreated sinus infection. The damage, in her opinion, doesn’t warrant an MRI. So who really knows.”
“I’m sorry. If I may ask, how is a hearing aid going to help tinnitus?”
“Sound therapy.”
“Okay.”
He held her a little tighter. “Ess, it crushed me when she started talkin’ about ‘your disability’. Ways to cope with ‘your disability’. If she said it once; she said it 15 times, ‘your disability’.”
“Have you talked to your mom about it?”
She felt him let out a long sigh, “I don’t think there’s much point.”
The house smelt divine. He walked straight from the door to the kitchen sniffing of the air. She slid her arms around his waist and laid her head on his back. “I thought you were going to spank me for not eating lunch?” He said playfully.
“Oh, I gave it serious consideration. But I felt like you wouldn’t be able to handle it, not have eaten and all.”
His stomach gave a loud growl. “So what are you going to do for Lent?”
She let him go and pulled the pot roast and cornbread from the oven. “I’m going to do a gratitude journal. I have a lot to be thankful for but I don’t give God near enough credit.”
“What have you done in the past?” He sliced the roast while she cut the cornbread.
“I’ve tried giving up caffeine. I failed miserably on that one. I’ve given up chocolate, candy. I read the Bible through one year and I started during Lent.”
As they sat down to eat, they continued to talk. “There is so little that I can eat, giving up something associated with food seems counterproductive.”
“One year I gave up cussing.”
He gave a sly grin. “You cuss?”
“Oh yeah, a sailor taught me how.”
“This is really good.” He moaned taking a bite of the roast.
She smiled, “thanks.” He seemed lost in another world to her as he ate his dinner. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Two girls got arrested today. One got on Facebook and called the other girl all kinds of horrible things. So the second girl confronted her about it. She had printed off ten pages of things the girl had said about her. The girl that did the name calling pushed the other girl into the lockers and it was on. There was blood and hair everywhere. I even stepped on a tooth.”
“Wow!”
“I hate Facebook. I don’t understand what people get out of it.” She smiled. “What?” He questioned.
“One of my jobs was trolling Facebook. You would be amazed at what people said thinking that it is private.”
“You don’t have a Facebook account do you?”
“I did a long time ago. But six out of ten times that I had to go to court, it was Facebook related. Suzie reconnected with her old boyfriend from high school and fell madly in love. She left her husband and three children high and dry because she couldn’t live without Mark. Jim had an affair on his wife and she found out about it from his Facebook page. He hasn’t been happy in a long time so he went looking for that happiness.” She rolled her eyes. “Indeed. One of the worst domestic violence cases I ever worked was over Facebook.”
“How so?”
“This man found himself an internet woman on Facebook. When his wife found that he was not only married to her but was married to three other women in three states, she just about killed him. She made Loraine Bobbit look tame by comparison.”
Oscar stood in the teacher’s lounge staring out the window. Instead of eating lunch, he gave serious consideration to taking a nap. He calculated in his head how long it would take to walk out to his SUV, and the time it would take to get back. What a day. His phone chimed. It was Esther.
“Hi,” he answered.
“Hey honey, what’s wrong?”
“Just tired.”
“I honestly thought I would get your voice mail. Today is Fat Tuesday and I was wondering if there was anything special you wanted for dinner?”
He was confused, “why?”
“Well, Fat Tuesday is the day before Lent starts. I have always pigged out on Fat Tuesday.”
“Really, why?”
“I always do something for Lent.”
“I thought that was a Catholic tradition.”
“It is. But what could be wrong with me practicing something that isn’t going to hurt anyone and has the potential of improving my relationship with God?”
“Point taken.”
“There must be people around.” He could hear her smile.
“Yes.”
She giggled, “Oh, I could do all kinds of mean things to you.”
“You are familiar with that old saying about payback?”
As she laughed, he couldn’t contain his smile. “What about a pot roast if I don’t use any savory seasoning?
“That’s what makes them good.” There was a pause.
“What are you eating for lunch?”
“Nothing.”
“I think that deserves a spankin’.” He got all choked up over that one. “I can just picture it now, all the people that are around you are lookin’ at you wondering what this conversation is all about.”
“I’m not even going to find out.”
“Do you love them that much?”
“Indeed.”
“Oh, you’re so cryptic.”
A bell rang in the background, “I’ve gotta go.”
“What about dinner?”
“Your idea sounds terrific.”
“Which one she giggled?”
“Both.”
“Oscar?”
“Hmm.”
“I hope you have a better afternoon than you did morning.”
“I love you.”
She giggled, “that raised a few eyebrows. I love you.”
She was right about that, he could feel people staring at him as he walked from the room.
Esther threw her head back laughing, “let he that is without sin cast the first stone.”
“I beg your pardon.” Brother Evan looked shocked.
“Beg all you want. So tell me how’s Brother Joel?” Brother Evan turned pale at the mention of the man’s name.
“I’m afraid I don’t know whom you are referring too.”
“Oh no, does the name Clair Morrison ring a bell?”
With a forced cough, he cleared his throat. “God has forgiven me for that.”
“Well God be praised. He may have but did you ever ask her for forgiveness? Did you ever ask my grandpa for forgiveness? He went to his grave wanting to kill you.” Brother Evan’s eyes grew wide. “Did you know I was playing under the sink?”
Oscar was in awe of the transformation that was taking place in Brother Evan’s body language. When he first walked through the door, he was so sure he had arrived at this house to bust a sinner. But he wasn’t so confident now that his sins had followed him.
His face turned bright red, “it’s a sin. There was no one there to witness to. No one there to forgive him. He is rotting in hell.”
“Who are you to judge?! How do you know the conversation that he had with God before or maybe even after? Do you know if he was able to live thirty seconds, a minute after he pulled the trigger? You know nothing!”
Brother Evan said not a word. “It is a sin,” he whispered.
“No one is disputing that.” Esther screamed. “But what authority gives you the unmediated gol to say that he is going to hell?!”
“God.”
“Did God whisper in your ear and tell you point blank that my dad is in hell washing the feet of Satan?”
“Well no, but the Bible is our guide to what is right and wrong?”
“You bastard. How dare you? My gram and pap went to their graves grieving over their son. Where were you? Their spiritual leader. Where were you?”
Oscar stood, “you need to leave.”
Brother Evan left the house, jumped in his truck, and squealed his tires as he peeled out of Oscar’s drive way.
“What just happened here?” Oscar asked.
“Piece of trash,” Esther said flatly.
He rubbed her shoulders, she was shaking. He held her as long as she needed him to.
As they sat at the table, Oscar was dying to ask her. So he finally did, “Esther, finish the story.”
She looked up from her picked at plate. He reached for her hand and she took it. “Brother Evan came over to the house one Saturday afternoon. He made sure Pap was gone when he came over. He talked to my Gram like a dog, telling her that what dad did was a sin and that he was going to hell; not only for killing himself but because he placed the burden of raising me on them. I found out in my later years how much guilt Gram and Pap felt for not being able to reach out to their son or try to help him get the help that he needed. But then to have a man of God tell them that the son they loved and cared about had no hope was just cruel. Even if it is true, and he can’t go to heaven, why would you tell grieving parents that?”
“And you were playing under the sink?”
“Yeah, I liked being in the dark. It was calming to me. Still is at times.” She smiled.
“Haven’t you noticed how dark my bedroom is?” She cleared her throat. “I snuck out and went to find Pap, he wasn’t far.”
“Who was Brother Joel?”
“Oh, he was a deacon at the church who fought tooth and nail for Evan. He had done no wrong. There could be no wrong in doing the will of God, for telling the holy truth.”
“This is why you don’t like organized religion?”
“In a nut shell.”
“Wow. I’m so sorry, Ess.” He guided her onto his lap and held her.
“We lived in a small town and my grandparents were well liked. Everyone knew what had happened to my dad and grieved with them.”
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