New Heart Church

by Jim Barringer

  Chapter Five

  I don’t even know how long I was there, but finally I stood and went back home. Stanley wasn’t in the building; I didn’t know where he had gone. I made it back to my room and had just strapped on my guitar when there was a knock at the door.

  It’s hard to say which of us was more surprised: Danny and Elizabeth Tucker at being greeted by a man wearing a guitar, or me at seeing the two siblings holding a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

  “Oh hey, guys. Want to come in?” I asked. Immediately I regretted doing so. I was ashamed at how empty my apartment was – I didn’t even have any furniture for them to sit on while we talked.

  “Yeah, that’d be great,” Elizabeth said, as I groaned inside. “These cookies are for you.”

  “Thanks,” I told her, taking the plate and heading to the kitchen with it, before coming back in and taking a seat on the floor. “You guys can sit on the bed, if you want.”

  Without a word, they sat on the floor, across from me.

  “I didn’t know you played guitar,” Danny said, closing the door behind him. “What kind of stuff do you play?”

  “Mostly classic rock. Some AC/DC, Metallica, Journey, Van Halen, that kind of stuff.”

  “Our church could use a guitar player,” Danny told me. “Ever played praise and worship before?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “You’d probably pick it up in no time. If you can play Van Halen, you can play anything we sing.”

  I didn’t want to tell him no right away, so I opted for a subtle topic change. “You know Van Halen?”

  “I was big into that kind of stuff back when I was a teenager, sure. I don’t listen to it much anymore, only when I get a craving for it. Who doesn’t love driving fast with ‘Panama’ cranked up?”

  By this point, I was surprised and intrigued. A pastor who openly admitted listening to and liking Van Halen? What kind of man was this, and what kind of church did he lead? Part of me genuinely wanted to go the next morning and find out what he was going to say. In fact, I didn’t really have any good reason not to go, other than that I didn’t really want to.

  “So what do you say,” he asked, “do you want to play?”

  Whoops. He had undone my topic change. “Uh, well, not tomorrow, no. That’s a little soon.”

  “Maybe you can come tomorrow, get a feel for what it sounds like, then come to practice some night this week.”

  I didn’t want to, but I also didn’t want to tell him no. “Yeah, okay,” I heard myself saying.

  “Excellent. Hey, is there anything I can do for you in the meantime? I know you’re new here in town, and Stanley tells me you don’t have any family or friends here yet. That’s got to be rough on you.”

  I chewed the inside of my lip, debating how much I should tell him. On the one hand, I sensed that he and Elizabeth were trustworthy people. On the other hand, there was no way I was going to pour my heart out to people who were still, apart from two minutes worth of conversation, total strangers. That just wasn’t how I rolled. I preferred to play my cards closer to my chest, make my needs known when I thought it was the right time. But there was definitely one thing I could safely tell him.

  “I need a job. Like bad. I moved down here with about a thousand dollars in the bank, and that’s not going to last long. My aunt’s still paying the rent, at least until her lease expires in June, so all I really have to pay for are food and gas.”

  Danny and Elizabeth glanced at each other. “What kind of job are you looking for?” Elizabeth asked. “What did you go to college for?”

  “I was an English major. Really, I’d do pretty much anything. I’d like to avoid factory work, if I can, but if that’s what pays the bills then whatever. Retail, sales, even something in writing would be great.”

  “Any experience in writing?” Danny asked.

  “None formally. College profs complimented my papers, but that’s about it.”

  “Do you have any of them you could send me?”

  That caught me off guard. I hadn’t owned a laptop, and hadn’t brought my desktop down with me, since I hadn’t anticipated needing it. “Uh, let me see if I have any of my data backup CDs. Or if you have a computer, I could check my email and see if I still have any of the ones I emailed to myself.”

  Danny nodded. “Let me know. If you’re any good I might be able to hook you up with some writing assignments. It wouldn’t be enough to pay the bills, not at first, but it might be something.”

  “Hey, something is everything right now.”

  “I’ll ask my boss if they need anyone else at the real estate office,” Elizabeth added. “Probably not, cause we only have a few people working there at a time, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

  “Thanks, both of you. I really appreciate it.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Danny said. “If you think of anything else, you let us know. I mean it.”

  “Thanks, really.”

  “Anytime. See you tomorrow morning. Enjoy the cookies.” With a pair of handshakes, the two departed.

  I kept sitting there on the floor, still trying to process what happened. At that point, I realized that I couldn’t figure myself out. I wanted people to be nice to me, but when people came to my door and were nice to me, it made me feel awkward to be the beneficiary. What I really wanted, I realized, was to be found worthy of kindness, to earn the kindness on my own merit, rather than to receive it simply because I was a charity case, or because giving it was habit on the part of the person who gave it. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate Stanley’s kindness, or Danny and Elizabeth’s; I did, but I didn’t understand it, and if I didn’t understand it, then I didn’t really want it at all.

  When I went to bed that night, I still wasn’t sure whether I was going to take Danny up on his offer. The decision was made for me at around six in the morning, when I woke up and immediately ran to the bathroom, sick to my stomach. Several hours later, when I was awakened by a knock on my door, that’s still where I was, having dozed off a few times but not been able to crawl back to bed.

  I let my eyes droop closed again, hoping that whoever was knocking would go away, but I should have known better. A few seconds later, a more insistent knock made me open my eyes again, and I staggered to the front door.

  It was a woman I’d never seen before, fortyish and Hispanic. I had been expecting Danny or Stanley, so I half-hid behind the door, ashamed of my appearance – bed-headed, baggy-eyed, still in my pajamas.

  “Oh, I – sorry,” I stammered.

  She smiled gracefully. “Are you Eli Radak?”

  “I am. I’d shake your hand but I’m afraid I’ve been ill for several hours.”

  “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you anyway, Eli. I’m Esperanza Nunez. I came to see if you wanted to come to the house church this morning, but if you’re ill, then I don’t want to trouble you.”

  “Thanks. Hopefully I’ll have a second chance to make a first impression.”

  She laughed. “I’m sure you will. Be blessed.”

  I watched her walk away, and noticed only belatedly that she was wearing jeans and a pullover hoodie. Who went to church in clothes like that?

  I shut and locked the door, then collapsed back on my bed for several hours, only to be awakened once again by a pounding on the door.

  This time I pulled on some pants and a hat before answering, only to see one of the men I had expected to see the first time.

  “Heard your diet of hot dogs and ham sandwiches finally caught up with you,” Stanley said. “How do you feel?”

  “A little better now, thanks. Want to come in?”

  “Naw, just wanted to check on you. And I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Excuse me? What do you need to apologize for?”

  “I spoke harshly to you. The wor
ds I said were accurate, but the way I said them was out of line, and I want you to forgive me.”

  “Stanley, you were absolutely right. I was being a child, and I deserved to get called out on it. There’s nothing that requires forgiveness. It hurt, sure, but I brought it on myself.”

  “That’s not the point, Eli. I know I was right; I just told you that. And I could care less about hurting your feelings, because sometimes the truth does that. I’m just telling you that I didn’t say those words to you with kindness in my heart. I said them out of anger, in the heat of the moment, and I need you to forgive me for treating you with anger.”

  I didn’t understand what he was getting at; he seemed to be talking in circles, but if it was so important to him that I forgive him, then I would tell him what he wanted to hear. “Well, fine, I forgive you.”

  He seemed to relax a bit. “Thanks, Eli. I try not to go to let the sun go down on my anger, so to speak; I like to ask forgiveness before I go to bed. Last night, though, I was out way late talking to a friend of mine who’s having some problems, and it looked like you were already in bed by the time I got back. I was hoping to catch you at church today, so that I could ask forgiveness before I worshiped, but you were too busy upchucking, so this is the first chance I’ve had.”

  I stood there leaning on the door frame, looking at Stanley with his hands in his pockets there in the hallway, and we stared at each other for a long time. He thought and acted on such a totally different level from everyone I’d ever met. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had stopped by to ask forgiveness. I also couldn’t understand why he was apologizing for telling me the truth. He had explained it, but his explanation didn’t make any sense to me. Finally I pushed my hat back and ran my fingers through my hair. “Thanks for stopping by, I guess.”

  “Not so fast. I’m taking a group of people to the Dallas Aquarium on Tuesday, and I want you to come along.”

  “How much does it cost?”

  “Don’t worry about the money.”

  “What do you mean, don’t worry about it? Is it cheap?”

  “I’m really tempted to lie to you and tell it’s free, just so you don’t have the opportunity to do what you’re about to do.”

  “What do you mean, what I’m about to do?”

  “The way you’re about to flip out and try to turn me down when I tell you that it’s seventeen dollars, but that I know you don’t have money, so I’m going to have it taken care of for you.”

  “Don’t do that, Stanley. I don’t need to see the aquarium that badly.” I’d never been to one, and actually I wanted very badly to go, but I didn’t want him or anyone else to be out seventeen dollars just so I could go.

  Stanley rubbed his temple for a moment. “Eli, how much are you worth?”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “Do you believe that you, as a human, are worth less than seventeen dollars?”

  I blinked a few times. “I don’t know how much I’m worth.”

  “Would you sell yourself for seventeen dollars?”

  “No…”

  “So you believe you’re worth more than that. So do I. That’s why I’m willing to pay seventeen dollars for the privilege of hanging out with you for a few hours. Your friendship is worth it to me.”

  What friendship? We’d known each other for less than a week. Just the day before, I had made him look like a fool in front of four of his friends. Why was he so convinced that I was worth spending money on?

  He chuckled. “I’ll take your silence to mean you agree. I’m going to go across the hall and bring you some orange juice. Drink it and rest up, because you’re not going to puke your way out of this one. See you at 10 in the morning on Tuesday.”

  As he disappeared into his room, I frowned. I truly didn’t understand him. Nobody in my life, even the ones who I would call best friends, had ever been as kind to me as Stanley. It was as if he had just determined that he was going to like me, and that nothing I did could slow him down. Why? He himself had told me there were a hundred and fifty people in the apartment building. What had I done to deserve his attention?

  He came out a few moments later with a half-empty jug of orange juice. “Drink up, now. I’m going to get out of here and wash my hands.” With a paternal smile, he went back into his room, and before I closed the door, I heard the kitchen sink running.