by Don Zelma
Chapter Forty-four
Dan rested his head against the paling gate and stared down at his nightgown.
‘Honey,’ Ruth said softly behind him. ‘Are you OK?’
He felt her soft hand rest on his shoulder, but couldn’t answer; he was too busy breathing. His head slowly turned, they locked eyes and he knew he was in a bad way. He looked through the posts under the house and saw Mini far away, standing in the office. She tilted her head, a little confused.
‘You’re scaring me, Daniel,’ she said, behind him. ‘Maybe you should sit?’
Dan looked down and stared at his loose grip on the gate. ‘Perhaps, you’re right,’ he said. ‘But I will not sit down. Not yet.’
He had resigned as pastor and now had things to do. His chin rose and he let go of the gate and took a few steps in under the house. His face had swollen to the medication and he felt fat and heavy. His hand reached out for a post and he slowly rested against it. Ruth remained at the gate and a gentle breeze blew in through the slats – cold like from a deepfreeze.
Lord, he prayed, there’s no doubt I’m in trouble. Please, please help me.
He was short of breath and started breathing through pursed lips. He slowly shook his head – there was no going around it, no going under it, you had to go through it.
He looked up, saw his office and Mini was wagging her scut. He carefully shuffled forward and eventually rested his cheek against the doorframe.
‘Dan?’ Ruth said from the gate. ‘Don’t you start pulling away from me.’
It was impossible not to wheeze. ‘Of course not, my love,’ he said. He stared at the wood near his nose and felt his spirits sinking.
‘I don’t want to be an invalid,’ he said quietly.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Did you say something?’
He licked his dry lips and tasted the doorframe. ‘Please, God, don’t let that happen.’
‘You are kind and generous,’ Ruth said. ‘He will grant you strength and save us.’
Dan looked down at his slippers. ‘Will He?’ he said. Mini was staring at him and he could not slow his breathing. He closed his eyes and listened to the thick moisture gargling in his throat. He reckoned, quite reasonably, he could die that very afternoon.
He heard Ruth quietly walk up behind him and felt her forehead rest on his back. He started heaving and felt like crying.
‘You’ll be OK,’ she said.
He spoke between gasps. ‘Go upstairs and continue packing,’ he said. ‘There is much to do before we move to the bay.’ Ruth waited and did not move. ‘Leave me!’ he said. She hesitated, then he heard her slowly walk away. He had never spoken to her like this.
The desk was close by and he reached out and slowly slumped into his chair. He heard the door close upstairs and Ruth going into the house.
‘Thank God,’ he thought – the floorboards were now between them. He slowly put his reading glasses on and they felt small on his fat face. He had to pack the office and this, perhaps, troubled him more than the physical pain. He slowly turned and stared at the photographs on his wall. They depicted his life from his youth and they were all now coming down. He stood and dragged the typewriter chair towards the wall and Mini started scampering around his feet.
‘Watch out, little lady,’ he said. She turned and trotted reluctantly towards her basket.
He stood on the chair, balanced himself against the wall, wheezing terribly. He came level with the first photograph, smelt the dust on the frame, and slowly touched the glass.
I remembered that day, he thought.
In the picture, he was twenty-two and in his first months of his ministry, standing behind the pulpit. It had been about the day Ruth had ‘chosen him’. He gazed a long time, remembering the feeling behind his confident eyes. He recalled his eagerness to teach and had believed, even then, he just about knew everything. But, he had known nothing then and knew nothing now. He had more questions in retirement then as an active pastor.
He lifted the frame from the nail – his palm white with old wall paint – and slowly stepped off the chair. His slippers shuffled towards his desk and he reached out for the bubble wrap Ruth had left him. He carefully wrapped the frame and placed it into the cardboard box. He approached the wall, slowly stood on the chair and reached out for another photograph. In it, he was thirty-four and on the stage delivering the benediction. He could not remember why it had been taken. His arm was outstretched and his eyes were closed and you could see the congregation in front of him. He saw Jay on the edge of frame, sitting in a front pew. He looked about twelve and was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees. Dan remembered that they had been close at that time, sharing every major event in each other’s lives.
Dan slowly turned and looked at the room. The photograph on the bookshelf with Ned and Joe once again drew his attention, as if it might bare more clues. He saw his son in his mind’s eye – dressed and as stolid as his friends, and started feeling teary.
One evening, when Jay was nineteen, he remembered seeing him sitting in the mango tree. The tree had been much shorter then. He had been gazing at the stars, wide-eyed, perhaps pondering purpose and life. Dan remembered he had smiled warmly, watching from the kitchen and had felt his son’s sincerity.
But it was around that time that he had started asking questions. He had secular friends and was curious about their lives. Why was his path so different? The hall’s code encompassed no drinking, no drugs and no girls – unless it was serious. There were the travelling evangelists promoting their time of experimentation before finding their faith. Dan now saw that because they idolised them, it just made a kid want to do it themselves – to live that same journey. Even Dan had slipped in his teens and tried things, and yes – he had told his son. Everyone had tried, except Jay. It’s a raw deal and Dan now understood why many youths don’t buy it.
‘I guess,’ Dan thought, ‘that’s the problem with families of strict moral code – your child begins to question it. And your answers had better be good. Clearly, his had not.’
Jay was a good kid – everyone said it. Perhaps, he had suffered intolerably, torn between worlds. Who does a pastor’s kid talk to? Who could understand the parallel feelings of devotion to faith and the lure of temptation? And if you tripped – who could then understand the guilt?
Dan began nodding to himself. Jay had become called by the strongest youthful urge – to simply investigate, and test one’s borders. Maybe Jay had just wanted to live like a normal teenager lives and it was ordinary exploratory behaviour.
But the hall tolerated no hypocrites. You were either in or out. Perhaps, given this ultimatum, his regular failures and double life, Jay had opted for the honourable path and let his family down.
Dan waited a long time, standing on the chair. His head turned and he looked at Jay’s photograph on the bookshelf. He stared at him – a motorcycle helmet under his arm and his fringe blowing up in the breeze; the picture had new meaning now. Perhaps, he had gotten it oh so wrong.
He gently rested against the wall. It was all too late to learn now and he wanted to cry.
His eyes moved to the picture, and Ned then Joe in the background. They seemed content, without a trouble in the world. Dan guessed their stories weren’t any more or less tragic then Jay’s.
He looked through the door into the dim afternoon light at the couch where Ned had sat, flicking his lighter open and closed. Ned yearned for meaning and it was dead real.
He slowly climbed down from his chair, physically and emotionally exhausted. Outside of Joe’s visit in the rain, he had not seen the men in over a year. He felt guilty and there seemed, once again, such important, unfinished business.
That evening, Dan carried a coffee out onto the front deck. It was twilight and the air was cool. He placed his elbows onto the railing and felt his soft cardigan under his arms. He reached up and sipped. Yes, in the past he had made mistakes. But now, after thinking things through in the office, he now knew he had learned fr
om them. He would move forward and he could teach others.
He smiled at the valley in the dying light. He liked the blocks of green cane like paddy fields and the muddy river snaking through the houses. He noted a distant tractor trundling along a far-off field, and saw the farmer’s wide-brimmed hat in the driver’s seat and a boy riding behind on the water cart, his hand reaching out to the tall roadside grass. They were preparing for a fire and Dan let the event play out before him like a scene from a good movie. A few minutes later, after dark, a drip torch licked out at the cane and he could see a fire starting. The green top cracked like distant pistol shots and the farm appeared slowly from the night. The farmer and his boy strolled back towards the riverbank and Dan saw them stand in the light of the flames. They waited, watching the fire, then the father mussed his son’s hair. Dan visualised doing so with Jay, healing old wounds.
He glanced down at his shoes. His porch, half a kilometre away, was dimly lit. He looked to his side, at the other tin-roofed homes in the street. He thought about BOOP and grew a little more optimistic.
Perhaps, he thought, with my new wisdom, God just might cut me some slack. Maybe, he thought, you never know – I might just beat this illness.