Chapter Three
Morning wrapped its cold arms around me as I blearily threw a blanket over my face to keep the insistent sun out. Frost painted the outside of the window, and breaths of cold air snuck inside the window, trying to keep me company inside my sleeping bag. It was one of those mornings where I wanted nothing more than to fast-forward to the next important thing that was going to happen – in this case, the Mavericks game in the evening. For some reason, I got up and out of bed anyway, standing under one of the ceiling vents near my door as it belched heated air down into the room.
The phone rang, and I lunged at it, hoping that it might be another job interview, second-guessing myself almost immediately, wondering why I was so excited about the idea of something that I would inevitably botch. A little disoriented by this sudden and unwanted barrage of thoughts that clobbered me, I hesitated, letting the phone ring one more time before putting my hand on it. “Eli Radak.”
“Don’t get excited; it’s just me.” My father’s gruff voice grated on my ears, and I cringed.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Are you going to come home for Christmas, or can I save a few bucks on a present?”
“Ah, I think I’m going to come home. We’ve always had Christmas as a family.” Even as I said the words, though, I was busy wondering where I would get the three hundred or so dollars that it would take to drive the gas-thirsty Tahoe eight hundred miles home. I didn’t want to use Jake’s money for that, but I could.
“Guess you’re right,” Dad grunted. “Well, what do you want me to buy you?”
“I don’t know, Dad. I don’t really need anything.” Actually I did – I didn’t have a computer or a cellphone, but he wasn’t going to shell out the cash for a computer, and I couldn’t afford fifty bucks a month for a phone yet anyway. “Maybe just a little cash would be nice. I still don’t have a job yet.”
“Still? Good Lord, son, what’s wrong with you?”
Stung, I bit my lip before answering him. “You know the job market, Dad, it’s –”
“Whatever, son, figure it out. Do something that makes it so I don’t have to apologize whenever I tell people I’m your father.”
“I’ll try,” I told him. “Bye now.”
Equal parts anger and shame washed over me as I carried some clean clothes into the bathroom, cranking up the water hot enough to chase away the chill in my fingers and toes.
A few minutes later, fully dressed, I pushed out the bathroom door and decided to get breakfast at someplace nearby. I had never been heavy, even at the bulk of my basketball fitness, and I hadn’t been eating much at all the last two weeks. I was almost out of the meager rations I had bought for myself that first lonely night at the grocery store, and even when I had things in the fridge, sometimes the thought of one more plate of hot dogs in white bread was so unappetizing that it was more worth it just to go to bed hungry. I hadn’t been on a scale, but I was pretty sure I had dropped a few pounds that I would have been better off keeping.
As I was leaving the building, I ran into Stanley, coming back from who knows where. “What’s cracking, Eli?” he asked, wrapping me up in a bear hug.
Surprised, I squeaked something incoherent, prompting Stanley to release me. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”
“I was on the way to get some breakfast,” I told him.
“Stand up straight,” he replied.
I blinked a few times, then did so, tensing my back and unslouching. “Why?”
“Now look me in the eye when you’re talking to me.”
I did this too, and stared at him for a few moments, while his coffee-brown eyes appraised mine.
He nodded, smiling. “Make a habit of doing that. Anyway, you were saying.”
“I was saying,” I continued, “I’m on the way to get breakfast someplace. Got any ideas for me?”
“In fact, I do. You haven’t been to Whataburger yet, have you?”
“I don’t think I have.”
“We’ll just have to fix that in a hurry.”
He steered me into his car, a brown Nissan Maxima, and in a matter of moments we were on Interstate 30 heading west.
“There’s a Whataburger right there,” I said, pointing out the window.
“I know,” he replied, eyes still on the road.
Confused, I lapsed into silence as Stanley kept going, turning north onto Interstate 820. Where on earth was he taking me?
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing off to the right at a runway butting up to a lake.
“That’s the navy/air force reserve base,” he told me. “We’ll be back here in just a minute.”
I was even more baffled than before, but sat back in my seat as Stanley took the next exit and pulled into the drive-through of a Whataburger just off the interstate.
“What looks good to you?” he asked.
“I dunno. Cinnamon rolls, I guess. And a Coke. Here’s some cash for it.”
“I got it.” He pulled out his own wallet.
I scowled out the window. “When are you going to stop paying for stuff?”
“Probably about the time it stops bothering you.”
A few moments later, I clutched my bag of breakfast while Stanley pulled out of the parking lot. But he didn’t get back on the interstate, sticking instead to the frontage road that ran alongside it. We had just gone under an overpass when Stanley slowed the car to a halt, looking up at the sky.
“Get out,” he ordered, and I did, the crisp chill of the morning embracing me. The sun hung lazily in a cloudless sky, so brilliantly blue that I couldn’t help but marvel at it. Winters in Indiana had been dull and dingy gray. This was spectacular.
“You asked about the reserve base a minute ago,” Stanley told me. “You ever go to the airport and watch planes when you were a kid?”
“Yeah, sure. Everyone does.”
“We’re going to do it again.” Stanley perched himself on the trunk of the car, feet on the back bumper, looking east across the lake.
As if on cue, a giant C-130 cargo plane thundered overhead, the roar of its four piston engines washing over us. It banked gracefully, defying its size and the pull of gravity, sailing over the water before dancing gently onto the runway.
“That was pretty awesome,” I admitted.
“You know it.”
We watched, fascinated, as the C-130 taxied off the runway, replaced by a pair of F-18 fighters. The screaming whine of the jet engines was audible all the way across the lake as the fighters throttled up, launching toward us, and tearing right over our heads so low that I could swear I felt the heat from the engines.
My ears still rang as I looked over to Stanley, grinning and giving him a thumbs-up. He nodded knowingly, then glanced back at the runway where a duo of F-16s were lined up for launch. Down the runway they blasted, banking up and away, chasing the two planes that had just taken off. For the next half-hour, the planes dodged and soared across the sky in a mock dogfight, while Stanley and I watched, necks craned toward the wall of blue that stretched from horizon to horizon.
The planes eventually worked their way further south, until they weren’t visible or audible to us anymore, and I looked over at Stanley. “That was really neat. Thanks for bringing me.”
“Anytime, son,” he answered, stretching and putting his hands in his pockets. “I just thought you needed some reason to remember today.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The Bible says, ‘This is the day that the Lord has made. Rejoice and be glad in it.’ I think it’s important to make every day memorable. Otherwise you’re just wasting your life.” He glanced at me, as if to see how I would react.
“I like the sound of that,” I agreed.
“Everyone likes the sound of it. No one wants to live a life that doesn’t mean anything, you know? But at the same time most people aren’t willing to admit tha
t they’re living that kind of life right now.”
“And you think I am.”
“You’ve told me so with your own mouth, Eli. We talked about what was going to make you happy in life, and you said maybe a job. What’s your goal for life? I don’t know, you said, just to get by I guess. If your life was a movie, nobody would watch it.”
I opened my mouth to snap back at him, but suddenly stopped, because I realized that he was telling me, in much nicer words, the exact same thing that my dad had told me earlier on the phone.
“Something wrong?” Stanley asked, seeing me suddenly go quiet.
“No,” I lied quickly. “I was just going to say that I’m starting to get cold.”
“So am I,” Stanley replied with a warm smile, and I got the feeling that he knew I was lying but was going to let me get away with it this time. I never could predict that man.
We rode back to the apartments in silence; I was content to stare out the window at the houses and buildings where people lived and worked. I was still thinking about the things Stanley said, about it being really hard for a person to admit when his life wasn’t what he hoped it would be. I could see subdivisions to the south, apartment buildings to the north, and I wondered how many of those people were really happy with what life had given them, if deep down in their hearts they weren’t just a little bit disappointed with the way things had gone, compared to how big and bright and beautiful life had seemed back when they were five years old.
That was a really sad thought, and it made me want to burst into tears, thinking about all the people in the world who were discouraged but would never admit it to anyone, had just learned to live with the pain and the fact that all their best dreams had been systematically destroyed, replaced by mundane habit and a small house in a big city. And I was angry at God then, for letting so many people exist in such unhappiness, for allowing them to leave the big and beautiful dreams behind and settle for drudgery. I wanted to tell Stanley all this, because it seemed very important to me, too important to hold in, but I couldn’t figure out what to say.
So I said nothing, balling my fists in silent frustration, as we pulled into the parking lot. “Here’s your stop,” Stanley told me, the car’s engine still running. “I’ve got to go take care of some things. I’ll be back in time for the game.”
“What time are we leaving for that?”
“We’re going to take the train again, so we’ll probably leave here at 3:30. Catch the train around 4, be there by 5, game starts at 6. We’ll figure out something to do till then.”
“Cool. Thanks, Stanley.” I started to shut the door, but I caught it, pulling it back open, leaning down inside the car and looking Stanley in the eyes. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he told me, with a huge, white-toothed grin, before pulling out of the parking lot.
I watched him go, wondering about the thoughts I’d had and where they had come from. They seemed like things I should have thought before, things I should have known, things that were woven deeply into the fabric of life.
I climbed the stairs, brain still spinning a million miles an hour, and found a note taped to my door.
“Editors loved your review,” it said. “Publishing next month. Fifty dollars. Congrats. Danny.”
I re-read the note, then read it again. This was good news. I liked good news. Maybe there would be more following it.
New Heart Church Page 17