New Heart Church

by Jim Barringer

  Chapter Four

  The next day was a Saturday, and I had just finished showering and getting dressed when there was a knock at the door. It didn’t sound like Stanley’s, so I wandered over and opened it to find a man, who looked to be a couple years older than me, with dark hair and light eyes. He extended his hand.

  “Hey, you’re Eli, right? I’m Danny Tucker. Stanley Raines told me you were new here, and I wanted to come by and introduce myself. This is my sister, Elizabeth.”

  She stepped forward and shook my hand strongly, with an easy smile. The way she held her body gave me the impression that she was sure of herself, that she didn’t struggle with her self-image or with the desire to impress people, the most of the girls I knew in college did. I’d never seen a girl – excuse me, a woman – carry herself that way before, and it was at once attractive and intimidating. “Pleased to meet you,” I told both of them, before turning to Danny. “What do you do for a living?”

  “Oh, I write a lot, and sell my work to various magazines. CD and book reviews, opinion pieces, interviews, that sort of thing.”

  “Sounds fascinating.”

  “It is. I’m a blessed man, that’s for sure. Speaking of which, I also pastor the house church that meets here, in room 501 on the top floor, on Sundays. It’s called New Heart Church.”

  “What’s a house church?”

  “Pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a church that meets in a house instead of in a church building. A lot of the people from this building come, and a few from the community nearby.”

  “Does Stanley?”

  “Yeah, he comes. He was instrumental in getting it off the ground, actually.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Hey, are you doing anything for lunch? Elizabeth and I would like to treat you.”

  Why did people keep trying to do stuff for me? “Really, I appreciate the offer, but I ought to get out and try to find a job.”

  “On a Saturday? Suit yourself. It’d be great to see you at church tomorrow if you can make it. We just meet up on the fifth floor, there’s a big room that we rent to use as our meeting place.”

  “Thanks for the invitation. I’ll have to see how I feel tomorrow.”

  “Cool. Well thanks, man; it was good to meet you.” Danny shook my hand again, and Elizabeth gave me another smile, as they turned away and I closed the door.

  I hadn’t been totally lying to them when I talked about hunting for a job. Well, I had at the time, because I had no intention of applying for more jobs; it was just that I didn’t want to keep spending time with people I didn’t know. It was kind of like what I’d thought last night about Stanley. I appreciated them spending time on me, but part of me wished they would just stop.

  I did grab the classified section again, though, and flipped through it idly. I wondered if there was a reason for my failure at finding a job. Perhaps I should have been looking for something actually related to my degree. I laughed a little at that; every job I could apply for would have something to do with English, right? Still, though, perhaps I was selling myself short. Maybe I should look for jobs at a newspaper, or maybe I could ask Danny later about writing for some of the magazines he wrote for.

  Almost as soon as I had that idea, it began to seem like a very bad idea. What newspaper was going to hire someone with only a bachelor’s degree and no experience in the field? All they were going to do was tell me exactly what I’d heard from every other job I’d ever applied for, namely that they were looking for someone who already had experience and that I could go take a hike. Anger overwhelmed me and I tried to throw the classified section across the room, but it was a newspaper so it didn’t fly very far. I kicked it out of the air, and it landed on the corner of my bed, as if to mock me. Whatever. I decided to go for a walk.

  The sun shone cheerfully, laughing at my frustration, as I pushed open the front door of the building and listened to it click shut behind me. I started out going west, making a mental note to remember where I was going since I still didn’t know this side of town that well.

  The first few streets in any direction from my building were relatively quiet semi-residential, semi-commercial city blocks; at least they were quiet during the day. Further west, the scenery became more industrial, with the warehouses and auto parts stores and such that I had driven past the other day. To the east, not too far away, was what passed for the Fort Worth skyline. Between here and there was the southeast side of downtown. Somewhere in this monstrosity of a city were half a dozen professional sports teams, aquariums, zoos, and the city block where Kennedy had been shot – none of which I had laid eyes on. I could claim I was living in Dallas-Fort Worth, but really, I had no experience with what that really embodied.

  I don’t know why that thought seemed so significant to me, as I wandered northwest for a while into a nicer suburb of large houses set back from the manicured sidewalks. I kept my head down as I wandered, hands in pockets, making a big loop that finally led me back home.

  I arrived to find Stanley waiting outside, t-shirt and sweatpants on, holding a basketball under his arm. “Bout time you showed up. Get changed. We’re going to play ball.”

  It was a pretty audacious thing for Stanley to assume, that I would have any skill at or interest in basketball, but I found that I couldn’t be offended at him. Part of that probably had to do with the fact that I’d been a varsity basketball player all four years of high school and all four years again in college. If he had tried to railroad me into playing golf or something, I might have been upset.

  Five minutes later, we were walking to the park, just a few blocks to the west. I had passed it a few times, both in car and on foot, but had somehow never noticed it, probably because of all the internal monologuing I tended to do while I was meandering.

  “I think you’ll like these guys,” Stanley told me as we wandered toward the basketball court, where four black men about my own age were laughing and practicing, waiting for us. “Introduce yourself. Don’t slouch. Look them in the eye.”

  “Thanks, dad,” I snapped, but I took his advice, greeting the others with a firm handshake. Jarrius, Julius, DeRon, Willy. I knew I was awful with names, but I made it a point to remember theirs. Something about them, both the way they talked to me and the things Stanley had said, gave me the impression that they could become the good friends I had been looking for. I took a few practice dribbles with Stanley’s ball, the crisp sting of the December chill jabbing my lungs, the sun hanging in a cloudless sky overhead.

  Jarrius and DeRon picked teams, and predictably, I was the last one chosen. Jarrius and Stanley, my teammates, let me take the ball first.

  I bounced it to Willy, who was guarding me, and he bounced it back; that was a “check,” to make sure the defending team was ready to do their job. As soon as I got the ball back, I planted, jumped, and uncorked a soaring three-pointer. The ball dropped straight through the hoop, barely ruffling the bottom of the net, as five pairs of eyes turned toward me.

  “That’s three-nil,” I said nonchalantly, smirking.

  The point had been made; I had let the others know exactly what they were dealing with, and had established myself as the guy to beat. It was risky, sure; no one can guarantee that a three-pointer will go in, but I knew I could make it, and I did, and I’d earned the right to strut a bit.

  The others were fairly good as well, and that coupled with the fact that I hadn’t played since the end of the summer made for a closer game than I would have thought. They were good sports, congratulating even the other team on plays and shots that were well done. It was an interesting environment, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had ever played with people who weren’t super-competitive and out for blood.

  We were trailing 19-18, playing to 20, when I caught a pass on the edge of the three point area, pivoted to my right, found Willy all up in my face, pivoted to my left, and jumped to shoot.

 
“Travel,” three voices chorused.

  I hadn’t yet shot, so I landed with the ball still in my hands. “That wasn’t a travel. I pivoted.”

  “You changed your pivot foot,” Willy told me, pointing.

  “I did not. I did like this,” and I demonstrated the maneuver that I had just done.

  “I’m afraid not,” Julius said calmly. “It was for real a travel, Eli. We’re not messing with you.”

  “It wasn’t a travel,” I protested, raising my voice. I knew I hadn’t done what they said I had done, and I wasn’t about to back down. “It wasn’t, was it, Stanley?”

  He shrugged. “Couldn’t see it from here. Willy was in my way.”

  I looked to my other teammate. “Jarrius?”

  He looked me right in the eye. “Pretty sure you traveled, Eli.”

  Disgusted, I flung the ball behind me, and it bounced to the far corner of the court. “Fine. You want it, you go get it.”

  There was a shocked silence, and then Stanley, of all people, slowly walked to the corner and tossed the ball to Willy. I was furious at him; I wanted someone from the other team to go after it. They were the ones who had cheated me out of a shot, and that would probably make us lose the game.

  Willy got the ball and gently checked it to me. I threw it back at his chest, and he caught it, dribbling twice before jumping up and firing off the same three-pointer that I had shot to start the game. Just like mine, it drifted right through the center of the net, whiffing the net like the gentlest December breeze. “That’s game,” he said quietly.

  “Whatever. I’m out of here.” I stormed off the court and was almost half a block down the road before Stanley caught up to me.

  Actually, he grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me around to face him. This unexpected show of violence out of him so surprised me that I didn’t even resist when he put his finger in my face. “You listen to me, son. That was ridiculous and childish. There is no excuse for you acting that way, throwing a temper tantrum and tossing their ball to the other end of the court. If you had half a brain in that head of yours, you would march right back there and apologize to each one of them for the way you treated them.”

  “I didn’t travel, Stanley, and I’m not going to apologize to cheaters.”

  “That has absolutely nothing to do with it. Do you realize how you just made me look? I told them I had a new friend for them to play with, a cool cat who they would get along with real well, and you go and act like a baby? I haven’t been that embarrassed in years, Eli, maybe decades.”

  That, at least, tore through my self-righteous anger, and I felt bad for shaming Stanley. “Look, I didn’t mean to make you –”

  “I don’t care what you did or didn’t mean to do.” Stanley wiped his face, glancing up at the skyscrapers on the horizon, then staring right into my eyes. “I know you feel alone in this town, Eli. I can read you clearer than a book. I invited you here thinking you could make four friends, good friends, who would drop everything to help you no matter what you needed. And this is how you repay me.”

  “I didn’t know –”

  “Oh, shut it, Eli. Just accept that you acted the fool in front of all of us. You could have had four brand new friends today. Instead you just made five people lose respect for you.” He elbowed past me and stomped back toward our apartment.

  I stood there, stung, watching him go. My anger over being cheated was crowded out by regret for my inability to see the big picture and for the way I had, unknowingly, trashed Stanley’s attempt to help me. He was right: I needed friends, and I had just been unbelievably rude to four potential friends – and now Stanley, the one person in the entire state of Texas who had been decent and kind to me, was mad at me too.

  I sank to the ground, so full of anger and sorrow and aloneness that it caused me physical pain, and the tears that sprang to my eyes were partly from the emotion and partly from the feeling of my heart pounding on my sternum. The sound of children laughing on the swingset behind me was salt in my wound; how I wished that it could be me at that moment, sitting in a swing without a care in the world, pushed back and forth by someone who loved me and would make sure nothing bad ever happened to me.

  A shadow blotted out the sun, and I opened my eyes to see Jarrius, my teammate standing over me. “You alright, man?”

  I sat up, squinting at him, trying to blink away the tears. After a few seconds of trying to figure out what to tell him, I finally just told him the truth. “No.”

  “Look, I know how you felt back there. The other guys, they’re not mad at you, just surprised, is all. You’re welcome to come back anytime.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed again. That was worse than what I had been expecting. I expected, even wanted, to be yelled at, to be told that I was out of line, but Jarrius came to me gently and with kindness. I didn’t even know how to react.

  “Thanks,” I offered, eyes still clenched shut.

  “I mean it. We’d love to have you back.” I felt a reassuring pat on my shoulder and heard Jarrius’ footsteps grow fainter as he walked back toward the park.

  It’s hard to describe the feeling of being crushed by undeserved kindness, but “crushed” comes pretty close. I laid back on the ground again, breathing slowly, opening my eyes to stare at the sun overhead, the canopy of the park’s trees on the edges of my vision, a few clouds lazily floating from west to east.

  What was happening to me? I had always been calm and reasonable, but for the handful of days I had been in Fort Worth, I’d been crying like a little girl. Surely the simple stress of moving couldn’t have messed with me that badly? Surely the lack of a job and friends couldn’t be the only answer, either, because I’d had no job and few enough close friends in Indiana, and it had never bothered me there. What was wrong?