Nighttime Errand

Just running to the store.

Enough setting to convince inquirers.

But bent light poles,

And the moonless sky

Cannot be fooled.

On that bridge ahead;

The ice was thick enough.

The snow, heavy enough.

The time, late enough.

The traffic, quiet enough.

An accident—

Waiting to happen—

That was the goal

That was the plan

That’s what they’d say to his old man

The moment came.

He clenched teeth,

Held breath,

Closed eyes, 

And pressed down.

But then a tone and a light

Grabbed at his thoughts.

He looked at the screen.

I love you.

Nothing else needed.

He blinked away a tear

And cleared his throat.

The bridge came.

The bridge passed.

Buying milk, he traveled back.

Responsibilities

            Christmas season may be the busiest holiday in America, but Thanksgiving is the first taste of the hectic season.  And I hate it.

The way Sarah runs about, you would think she was preparing for a competition.  We spent a full day of gathering groceries and prep-cooking for tomorrow, all on my day off, for one family meal.  Then she asks me to take a special trip to my office twenty minutes from our house, just to grab her coat.  So here I am bumbling up the slippery wooden steps in the sleeting rain, trying to stay alive long enough to get through the outside door to my office. 

I walk around the outside of the building and enter through a side door.  I search the office and the coat isn’t anywhere that Sarah swore that she had left it.  Not surprising.  I let a long pressure-filled breath fly.  Great, now I’ve wasted a trip.  Just then I hear a chime from my cell phone. It’s a text message from Sarah:  “I’ve got to run to the store again.  Kids are coloring Thanksgiving Day pictures. Come home before they get bored!” I leave my office immediately.  There’s no telling what an 8 year-old and a 5 year-old will do on their own.  All I can see are terrible images of baby sparrows falling out of their nests while the mother sparrow is gone.  They’ve never been home alone before, so they’ll probably go crazy.  A father can’t let that happen to his own child. Hurriedly, I lock the outside door behind me and instead leave through my inside office door, to cut through the sanctuary.

Stepping through the side door my foot slaps the hard, wooden floorboards on the stage of the sanctuary.  It is by no means a “loud” sound, but the impact of my wet boot on the laminated floorboards echoes like a snow owl’s coos on a cold winter night. 

 What was that?  A quick noise and a flurry of movement in my peripheral spark my neck hairs to attention.

I stop and stand rigidly still on the stage.  There is no more movement, only the outlines of ridged pews in perfect lines face me.  “Hello?” I call out. My baritone voice is currently far too high to be intimidating.  I straighten my spine and stand tall at my full six foot height.  Using my developed “Baptist Preacher voice” I call out more forcefully into the stillness. “If someone’s out there show yourself…now!” 

Still the dark remains motionless, but the hairs underneath my collar continued to tingle.  I could just turn around and leave through my office, but this is my church.  I have to take care of it. 

After taking a breath deeper than I think I have ever taken in my life, I move down the steps in front of the stage.  My eyes have begun to adjust to the blackness, and I can see the outlines of the pews more clearly in the haze as I move up the center aisle.  I check each pew as I pass. Right side, then left side.  Honestly Sarah, if I get killed tonight over your stupid coat….

There are only two rows left.  As I look to my right, I see the same hymnals spaced out along the dark-red seat cushions that are in every row.  There are also the Bibles hanging on the back of the pew in front of it each flanked by two cheap ball-point pens.  I see the same thing to the left.  Hang on.  I check again, there are no tissues that I can see at the end of the row that are normally in each row. Sandra must have forgotten a pew.  Then, I notice that the smooth curve of the pew’s far armrest that the tissue boxes normally stand against is obstructed.  Instead there is a lumpy outline of something silhouetted by the dim light that penetrates the glass of the windows behind the figure.  My heart’s racing now, and my mind decides that it is time to leave.  Unfortunately my mouth doesn’t agree as I hear my voice call out.  “I see you there.  Show yourself.”  Brilliant Todd.  Command the murder.  I’m sure he’ll apologize for scaring you.

The form does begin to move, and it unfolds.  The person‘s head raises, and feet come down, but the back doesn’t really straighten much.  The individual just hunches forward more so that his forehead nearly rests on the high back of the pew in front of him.  My guess is a male because of the way the head droops below the bony shoulders. There was also something like a baseball cap on the head.

 “Are you a priest?”

A boy? The voice sounds young, but it’s also low.  Probably the result of a recent voice change. “Not exactly, I’m a pastor.”  The boy doesn’t respond.  “Hold on for a moment while I go turn on the lights”

“No!” he says.  I don’t move. “Please leave them off,” the boy says more softly.

“Alright then.” Time to enter preacher mode.  “Would you mind if I sat down.”

“Yes.”

I sigh inwardly.  I really don’t have time for this.  “How about if I sit down way over here on this side?”

I think I see the dark shape of his head bob slightly so I take a seat, moving a hymnal out of my way.  “What’s your name son?”  He doesn’t respond for a good ten seconds, then he mumbles some name at me.  “James?” No answer.  “Well, James, can you tell me how you came in?”  Please don’t tell me you broke a window.

“The window of some room was unlocked.”

Sandra, I told you to make sure everything was shut up tight.  I push that from my mind, I’ll wait until after thanksgiving to have yet another talk.  “I see.” I nod slowly up and down.  “Well, why are you here James?”  Honestly this is going too slow.  Peter was probably already exploring the house like a wild man discovering a city for the first time.

“Does God care about me?”

Really God, I don’t have time for a philosopher.  I pivot on the bench and face him, he’s still hunched over, looking at the floor.  “God cares about everyone,” I say.  “We can’t always see his love in our lives, but it’s there.”

“You’re wrong.” The words seem to bounce around the arched stone ceiling and smack my face repeatedly. That usually works for churchgoers.  “Why do you say that?” I ask in as steady a voice as I can muster.

“God doesn’t love me.”

I arch my back and stretch it a little bit. I never realized just how uncomfortable these seats are.  “And why do you say that?”  Light began to come through the long, barred glass windows as the gray sleet clouds recede some.  The moon’s dull tonight. Now I can see James’ outline better, but the light was not strong enough to show me the features that are untouched by the light, the only features of his I could see from this angle.  I can’t see the boy’s arms, they might be in between his legs, but he has a hymnal opened in his lap. It’s too dark to see the name, let alone for the boy to be reading it.

“My only friend moved to Massachusetts this summer,” says James. “And mom died two months ago.”

 “I’m really sorry to hear that, James.” 

“That’s what people say.”

Maybe he’ll felt better if I hug him.  People like that a lot, right?  I stand up and begin to move closer to him, but I only get halfway.

“Stay away!” James looks right at me and I can just make out his narrowed eyes.  The boy looks like a beaten stray cat. 

“Alright James,” I say with my hands slightly up, trying not to scare the thing off. I sit down again in the middle of the bench.  “I really am sorry James.” James looks down towards his feet again.  He’s no longer completely blackened by the moonlight sneaking into the sanctuary.  James’ obviously not looking at the hymnal in his lap, his body is so bent that his stomach is practically covering the book.  He’s looking through it. I really wish I could see the name. 

 The boy’s not wearing a coat, but a long-sleeved shirt that is rolled up at his elbows.  The baseball cap he wears is pulled down low over his eyes.

“Are you cold James?”  The boy was quivering a little in front of him.  It was cold.  Snow had begun to fall outside the windows, and it only made the pale grey stone of the building a refrigerator.  

“I’m fine,” the boy said.  The cold stone all but stole the words before I could hear it.

James’ white skin looked unusually pale in the meager light.  Coming home to skin that sickly pale sends my heart into a little palpitation.  “I know that it’s hard to lose a friend, but that’s something everyone goes through in their life James.  Many people lose friends, but later they make new friends, sometimes even closer friends.”

“My mom just died and you want to talk about my friend leaving?” 

Dang it! How could you forgot about the mother Todd?  “I’m sorry James, do you want to talk about your mother?”

“Don’t bother.” The few pew feet between us felt more like a few hundred. 

            I can’t help but let a sigh escape through my nose.  Why are these benches so gosh darn uncomfortable?  Maybe I can coerce Sarah into rubbing my back for a while.  I need to get back first though.  And it really is cold in the building. Sandra needs to call someone about the heater, it does absolutely nothi…

            …What?  I hear a muffled grunt briefly touches my ears. I look over at James but he remains bent over, rocking back and forth very slightly.  I purse my lips slightly as I stare at him.  Poor boy.  I try to think of something to say, but all that comes to mind is how worried I am that Peter and Candice are home alone.  He reminds me of Peter though.  His cap says Boston Rebels on it.  Just like Peter despite all the Yankees hats I’ve bought him over the past couple of years.  Is this how he’ll look in five or so years?

He’s obviously in a lot of pain.  “James,” I say trying to sound soothing, “is there any other reason you think God doesn’t care about you?”

            “Yeah.”  James voice sounds tenser now, although he remains as quiet as the mouse who is undoubtedly responsible for the crumbs I discovered scattered on my desk yesterday.  “My dad didn’t come back today.”

            “Maybe he just got caught in traffic?” I offered.

            “No, he went to talk to my principle this morning and never came back.”  A tear tries to fall stealthily, but it pings audibly on the floor.  There is another quick fidget by the boy and James takes a quick, barely audible breath through his nose. Why are his arms still under the hymnal?  It must be horribly uncomfortable.  “He didn’t even call.”

            God, kid can’t catch a break.  I glance at the baseball cap again.  “Did he see your principle because of your eye?”

            James quickly turns his head toward me, then lowers it even more than before. He shrugs.  “A door hit me when someone opened it too quickly, it was an accident.

            Now I’ve got to call social services.  I inch a little bit closer to the boy hoping to speed up the conversation.  It’s already been a good twenty minutes.  The sound of crying becomes present.  But the crying is stifled, like James is trying not to cry even though he wants so very badly to cry.  He’s hurting an awful lot.  I turn and rest my back against the pew, playing with my fingers in my lap.  I know I should be doing a better job to help him, but God gives him to me the one moment that I’m not able to focus.

James swallows hard.  His voice is racked with more emotion than any young man should have to bear.  “It’s all God’s fault.  My life’s been horrible ever since I started to go to church with mom.”

            I face him again.  I haven’t had to council someone like James in years. Most people just place their tithe in the saucers and smile at me with their perfected “church smiles” as they pass me every week at the door on their way out.  What’s a good thing to say?  He really deserves having the ability to talk someone better than me.  “James,” I begin searching through the darkness to meet his eye, “It’s not God’s fault th…”

            “It never is, IS IT?”  I was caught well off guard.  He probably didn’t shout all that loudly, but his voice, and the squeak at the end of his outburst, intensifies on the tomblike walls.  “Everyone says the same thing.  ‘It’s not His fault you were tied in your underwear to the flag pole all night long.  It’s not His fault your mom died driving you to youth group. He loves you!’” James’ voice slaps at the stoic air. 

            What do I do? The boy started shaking again, this time more violently now.  He looked like a pot on the edge of a table; one little push and he could break hundreds of indiscernible pieces.

            A long, painful wail vibrates through the air.  It breaks the sounds I always here from the pews:  the hushed whispers, the slight chuckles, the occasional half-hearted “amen.”  James’ voice shakes even the usually steady stone around us.  There is not only sadness in the cries though, there is anger and frustration driving the cries.  I close my eyes for a moment.  Please, God...tell me what to do.  After a few minutes, I can’t take it anymore.   I stand up very slowly.  Try not to scare him Todd.  James doesn’t see me, though.  His forehead is collapsed onto the pew in front of him and eyes are squeezed tightly.  I lower myself to my knees right next to him, his cheeks glisten slightly in the dim moonlight.  The poor child’s jaw is going to break if he keeps clenching his mouth like that. 

            I take a deep breath.  One last try.  I let my breath out slowly to let my presence known.   Immediately the ever-present misery traveling the room like ripples crashing into each other ceases.  His body goes rigid in front of me.

            “Just leave me alone?”  James’ voice is only a mumble now. 

            “I want to help you James,” I say.  For the first time, he turns and stares directly at me with water pooling underneath his eyes. 

            “There’s nothing anyone can do to help me.” 

            There’s a great tug at my heart.  I’m invested now.  But I’m invested to my kids too.  “Why don’t you come home with me? We can talk more on the way.”

            “No.  I just need to stay for a bit longer.” James said looking down at the floor again. His arm jerks some in the darkness.  Is he playing with something in his hands?

            “I can drop you off somewhere else if you’d rather, but we can still talk in the car.”

            “No.  I need to stay.  I’ll leave soon.  You can go.”  James gives a little grunt and I see his left bicep contract for a moment, but the boy’s forearms are still completely hidden by the hymnal in his lap.  I can’t quite see the title, but I see the phrase, ‘There’s power in the blood, power in the blood,’ repeating over and over again throughout the hymn.  It’s not a very popular song. 

“I can’t leave you here.”  What’s going on with this kid? His shaking slightly and his pale face looks like all the blood has left it.  “Let’s go James.”  I go to pat his knee, but he jerks away from me when he sees my hand moving.  I grimace at my folly. The hymn falls page first from James’ lap onto the stone below. Then I hear something.  

It’s about as noticeable as a single pebble falling into a lake, but I definitely hear a slight wetness to the sound of the hymnal slapping the ground.  Then a small shape of light shines on the Bible in front of me.  It quivers slightly as it illuminates the ‘Holy’ on the book.  I follow the light‘s angle to my right and I see the small, bloody metal blade of a box cutter in the boy’s right hand.    

His left hand arm has blood gurgling out of it like hot springs up and down his forearm. A drop of blood falls off of James’ salt white arm and lands on the open hymnal below.

“Jesus.”

.           .           .

“Honey is everything alright?”  Sarah says run-walking towards me. I hug her before answering.  I pull away, looking at her for a moment.  “

“Where are the kids?  Are they alright?”  My exhausted heart tried to kick back into gear.

“Oh, they’re fine of course.  My sister’s watching them.”  I let my tense shoulders drop and take a few controlled breaths.  “Is that blood on your shirt?” Sarah asks.

            “It’s the boy’s,” I say.  I zip up my jacket and nod to the door.  “He passed out on the way to the hospital. The doctor said he’ll be fine in a day or two but he’ll have some scarring.” I swirl my coffee around in its cup for a couple of seconds. “Some nasty scarring.”

            Sarah rubs my arm.  “Are his parents devastated?”

            I sit down heavily on the bench and take a swig of the now-cold coffee. “The mom died not too long ago, and they can’t find the father last I heard.”

            “The poor thing,” says Sarah. “His father should be there for him.”  She sits quietly next to me and we sit in a heavy silence for a couple of moments. 

            “He won’t be.”  I take another swig of the disgusting coffee. “I think I’ll head over.”

            Sarah looked at me and gave a small, sweet smile.  “You’ve already done so much though honey.”

            What had I done?  I sat there…while he cried and bled.  “It’s what God wants, I’m sure of it.”  Sarah nods and rises to give me a hug.  “If I don’t see you tomorrow, I hope Thanksgiving goes well.”