Chapter Two
I felt industrious that afternoon, tired of being cooped up in my apartment with no money and nothing substantial to accomplish. With that in mind, I hunted down the CDs that Danny had given me to review, and sat down to listen to them.
The first was some kind of generic Christian pop-sounding music. It sounded happy enough, upbeat, and the singer’s voice – a woman – sounded clear and confident. In terms of technical quality, it was very good; in terms of being “good music,” the way I usually thought of good music, it couldn’t have been further away. A trained monkey could play those guitar riffs, those drum fills. The rhymes were generic, obvious, and clichéd. I couldn’t help but be annoyed. Part of me hoped, at that moment, that I never reached the point where I wanted to be a Christian, because I didn’t want to devolve into the kind of person who was satisfied with that kind of music.
I tabbed through the other tracks on the CD, then wrote what I thought about it, tapping my pen on the page as I proofread what I had just written. It was a bit harsh, maybe, but I had been tasked with reviewing the CD, and that’s exactly what I had done.
I ran the paper up to Danny’s apartment, and he opened the door, seeming surprised to see me. “Oh, hey, Eli. Come on in.”
I did, plunking myself on his couch. A football game blared from his TV, the Cowboys versus the Eagles. “You a Cowboys fan?” I asked him.
“Can’t stand them. My favorite team is whoever’s playing the Cows this week.”
I snorted, amused. “I’m sure there’s a good story behind that.”
“It’s not really worth telling. I’ve just known a lot of jerks who were massive Cowboys fans, and this is my subtle way of sticking it to them.”
“I thought you were supposed to love everybody, Mister Pastor Man.”
Danny shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect. What are you holding?”
I held it out for him. “First draft of an album review. Can you take a quick glance at it?”
“Yeah, sure.” Danny sat, turning down the game and reading down the paragraph. It only took him a few seconds, and at the end he looked up, an eyebrow raised. “A little harsh, yeah?”
“I didn’t think it was very good.”
He handed it back. “Alright. That’s fair. The only problem is that people aren’t really going to be reading the magazine for the opinion of Eli Radak. They’re going to be reading to find out about the album. Maybe you can spend a little more time talking about what was objectively good about it and what was objectively bad. You did a little of that, but it needs to be the bulk of the review. The harsh bits were funny, so try keeping the humor but not making it quite so abrasive.”
“So, basically, rewrite the whole thing.”
“I would, yeah. Don’t be discouraged, Eli. This is the first one you’ve ever written. Nobody’s ever told you how to do it before. It’s my mistake for not having this conversation before you tried to write it. Maybe you can explain who would like this album and who would dislike it.”
“Fine. I’ll give it another shot.”
“I’m serious, Eli. You look like you’re starting to sulk. Don’t do that. Just go back and make it better.”
I had been starting to sulk, because nobody likes to be told that something they created is garbage. Danny had done it in the nicest way possible, but he had still told me that what I had done wasn’t good and that I needed to redo it all.
Back on my bed, frowning, still in a cloud of annoyance, I set about rewriting the essay. I did exactly what Danny said: list of pros, list of cons, people who like pop and dance will probably like it, people who like more intense music will not. I re-read it, and I could see where Danny was coming from. The new piece was a lot less angry, and would be a lot more enjoyable to someone who wasn’t me.
I thumped up the stairs again; Danny’s door was already open, the football game back at its previous volume. Just as I went to knock on the door, Danny jumped up, pumping his fist. “Ha! Eat that!” He caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of his eye, and half-turned to look. “Whoops. That was embarrassing.”
“I never pegged you as the guy who would go nuts over sports, Danno.”
“There’s a little surprise in all of us. Got a new article for me?”
“I do.”
Danny read over it, nodding. “This is much better. This is something I would want to read. If you want I can type it up and send it in to my editors. They’ll let me know soon, probably tomorrow, whether they want to publish it.”
“Wow. That would be great.”
“Now get back downstairs and start reviewing the other CDs.” Danny shooed me out of his room, turning his attention back to the TV, and I lingered in the doorway just long enough to see him start arguing with the referee about a blown call.
I made it to my room, and lay on the bed, and felt uneasy. I couldn’t put it into words, but I had a very strong sense that my life was passing me by, that the second hand was ticking while I sat there doing nothing. I wanted to do something. But I had no money, and no ideas of where to go to pass the time.
In college I had lived for these lazy Sunday afternoons, but that was only because I knew that when Monday came my life would have purpose, action, and direction again as I pursued my learning. Today I had no such promise; tomorrow would only be another aimless day, fruitless job search, and joyless sunrise. I couldn’t stand it.
I could feel something tugging at the back of my soul, a kind of creeping depression that I hadn’t felt since those first miserable days in Texas. It seemed so long ago, but barely two weeks had passed since I first moved in and met Stanley. I had heard and experienced so many things in that time, that it was as if I had lived a whole new lifetime. Even college, which had been the last five years of my life, up until just six months ago, seemed like it had happened an eternity ago to another person.
Not really knowing what to do, I found my legs carrying me back upstairs to Danny’s apartment. I at least didn’t want to be alone. Even if all Danny and I did was watch football – and I rather hoped that was all it would be, rather than one of those deep conversations he and the others managed to pull out of nowhere – I would be around another human, rather than quietly losing my mind alone in my room.
Danny seemed surprised to see me again. “Oh hey, Eli. I’m sure you can’t have another review for me so soon.”
“I don’t. I was wondering if I could hang out with you for a while and watch the game.”
“Sure thing, bud. Come on in.” He waved me over and I took a seat on the loveseat where I had been the night we watched Aladdin, the night he and Elizabeth had shared their story with me.
We watched football for a while, and much to Danny’s glee, the Cowboys frittered away a substantial halftime lead, succumbing in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter. Satisfied, he sat back on the sofa, grinning wildly.
“You take way too much pleasure from their misfortune,” I observed.
“Sports are good for that kind of thing,” Danny replied. “They’re getting paid fat wads of cash. They can handle me laughing at them when they fail.”
“That’s one way to look at it, I suppose.”
“I have a question for you.” He looked at me, and I had the terrible feeling that he was about to ask something profound.
“Shoot.”
“Why are you here?”
I frowned. “What, here on earth? In Texas? In this building?”
“Well, all of those, but here in my room right now. This is the first time you’ve sought me out, or Stanley unless he neglected to tell me about it, for the purpose of spending time with us. I’m curious what changed for you.”
“Why should I have to have a reason? Can’t a man spend time with his friends?”
“While I’m honored that you call me a friend, I think there’s something else going on.”
Sighing, I tossed my arms in the air helplessly. “There’s really no getting anything past you, is there?”
“People do things for a reason, Eli. Everything that every person does is done for a very specific reason. They might not know what it is, but there definitely is one.”
“Okay then. I was feeling uncomfortable being alone in my room. I didn’t want to be by myself.”
“And?” Danny looked at me, and it seemed to me that he was delighting in my discomfort.
“And I felt like I was wasting my life.” In a way I couldn’t believe I was saying those words, but they were coming out anyway. “I felt…I feel…like I don’t have purpose or direction the way I used to.”
“I can tell you why.”
“Let me guess. It has something to do with your faith.”
“Yes. And no.”
I closed my eyes; I wasn’t in the mood for wordplay. “Explain yourself.”
“It has to do with my faith, and the fact that you don’t have it. See, Eli, you’re – how do I say this gently? – spineless.”
I had heard the same thing from so many people lately that I wasn’t as offended this time as I might have been. “Okay.”
“See, from the moment you walked into this building, we’ve peer-pressured you into doing things with us. I straight-up told you that Stanley advised me not to give you a choice. ‘Just tell him to come,’ Stanley said, ‘and he’ll do it.’ And he’s been right.”
“What’s your point?”
“The point is that you’ve done exactly what we’ve told you to do, because you’re weak and passive. Think about this, Eli: what if we had been bad people?”
“I don’t follow.”
“What if, instead of inviting you over for dinner, Stanley had invited you to his house to smoke a bowl? Cause you know that guy doesn’t take no for an answer. You’d be a pothead right now because you wouldn’t have bothered to tell him no. You just do whatever people tell you to do, and I don’t think you understand why.”
“So basically you’ve been manipulating me into doing what you want me to do. That’s what you’re telling me.”
“Yes.”
The answer was so shocking and straightforward that I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.
“Yes,” he repeated. “We’ve had to manipulate you into doing beneficial things, because you weren’t going to do them yourself. You weren’t going to reach out and make friends, do things with us, accept our help, on your own. Please, tell me I’m wrong.”
“You’re right,” I admitted, a bit annoyed but curious about where all this was going.
“You ever watch that show where they do interventions for people who have drug problems?” He leaned forward, ignoring the TV, looking right at me.
“I’ve seen it before, yeah.”
“It’s kind of like that. That’s straight-up manipulation, but it’s okay, because it’s something that has to be done. If I saw a child playing in traffic, I’d scold him for it, because someone has to say something to him, but that’s just another form of manipulation. It’s only a bad thing if you think that all manipulation is always bad, which is really ignorant.”
I said nothing.
“Everyone does everything for a reason,” he reminded me. “You do things because you’re weak and passive and you let people push you around. We as Christians do things because God tells us to show his love and kindness to the people around us. And we’ll stop at nothing to do so. We’re like a steamroller of love.”
I laughed, looking up at the ceiling. “Nice one.”
He smiled, shrugging. “It’s true. I just want you to know that I know where you’re coming from. I know that you’re a passive person and that you probably don’t want to be. I know this because you’ve just listened to me tell you so and you haven’t bothered to argue with me or defend yourself. You know there’s something inside you screaming out for a change. You’re just hesitating. You’re not willing to accept it just yet. That’s okay. We’ll keep doing what we do, and when you feel like the time is right, we’ll be here.”
“Okay,” I said simply.
“Looks like the Colts are coming on next,” he said, turning back to the television. “You a fan?”
“Love them. Who are they playing, Houston? Tough game.”
We watched football and talked idly, the way that sports make men talk, not about important things but constantly nonetheless. A few hours later, I thanked Danny and went home, feeling like something important had happened.
In a way it had been nothing important. To anyone who wasn’t me, it would seem hilariously trivial: all I had done was go upstairs and start a conversation. Not exactly the kind of event that makes a bestselling book or a box-office blockbuster. Yet as I lay in my bed falling asleep, it seemed like today was one of the most important days in my life.
New Heart Church Page 16