The Youngest Hero

by Jerry B. Jenkins

  I knew from TV and magazines that out there somewhere was a life far beyond my own, and I was desperate to find it. But I was also realistic. I wanted to marry Neal Woodell and stay in Mississippi, not necessarily Hattiesburg, but maybe down on the coast or up closer to Jackson. A university town might be nice. That was the extent of my dream. My aunt had prattled on about Chicago, but to marry somebody who would move to an international city like that—well, to even dream such a thing would make me like Mr. and Mrs. Woodell.

  There was no extra money in that home, not even enough to move closer to Mr. Woodell’s work. Yet they always seemed to be playing the local numbers racket, an illegal lottery that made someone in the county richer by twenty to five hundred dollars every week and by three thousand dollars every two months. By the time someone had spent five hundred dollars with no return, they had been hooked on the chance at the three grand. Lots of people, including the Woodells, borrowed to play.

  Four years before I had even heard of Neal Woodell, his family had won a hundred and twenty-five dollars in the county game. Neal told me they had been just as dirt poor then, but rather than use the money to fix their car or put tires on the pickup, they celebrated. His family was still talking about it after Neal and I had married. What a weekend they had had in Biloxi.

  Mrs. Woodell had played the winning number. She had chosen it from the birthday of a dead uncle, a no-account drifter named Clovis Woodell. The story went that Uncle Clovis had looked his new niece-in-law-to-be in the eye at the church just before her wedding and told her she was about to become his prettiest relation. He shook her hand and welcomed her warmly into the family.

  “I wish you the very best,” he said.

  She still told the story with a sparkle in her eye. “He din’t even try to kiss me like all them others done. He was just real nice, and he always treated me with respect, right up till the day he died.”

  “How did he die?” I asked her the first time I heard the story.

  “Somehow tripped and fell down the basement stairs over to the church. Hit his head somethin ugly awful, was in a coma for a coupla days, and never woked up. Nice funeral, real nice. He never married, so there wasn’t no wife or kids or nuthin to worry bout. He left us his estate, such as it was.”

  I hadn’t felt bold enough to ask, but Neal’s mother told me anyway. “Mostly just stuff from his shack. He only ever worked on the railroad, so there was some lanterns and some kitchen stuff. Nuthin else worth anything. Somebody told me once that there was some antique-buyin couple makin a swing through here what woulda give me a few dollars for the lanterns, but it wouldn’ta seemed right to me anyway, know what I mean?”

  I nodded, but it was beyond me how Mrs. Woodell could have been so sentimental about a dead uncle’s junk and yet see nothing wrong with using his date of birth as a numbers racket entry.

  Anyway, that one victory, out of the thousands of dollars the family had spent trying for the big one, was known—by the time I had become an item with Neal—as the “Clovis Payoff.” All that small bit of luck did was to forever marry them to the game. In fact, I thought, some quick-thinking numbers racketeer may have simply decided it was time for the Woodell number to come up. Years later, having never won again, they were still playing.

  That hundred and twenty-five dollars had revealed some bedrock generosity—or recklessness—on the part of the Wood-ells. They didn’t hoard it, weren’t selfish with it. They piled all the kids into the truck and spent two days and one night in Biloxi, at a modest hotel that left them enough money to play and eat.

  The Clovis Payoff was anything but an end. It was living, breathing evidence that they were destined for fortune. Their ship, from wherever, had set sail. Who could know when it might appear on the horizon?

  It was only after I was married and working that I heard a name for that kind of thinking. My boss at my first accounting job referred to someone with a “blue-collar mentality.”

  I resented the remark for weeks, though it had not been directed at me. My people and my husband’s people, and most of the decent people I knew, were blue-collar. As far as I knew, there was no general blue-collar mentality. Most were hardworking lovers of the land, and we scratched out a living the best we could.

  But then I started listening more to Neal. I saw him counting on talent alone to carry him in professional baseball. His conditioning was not what it should have been. He smoked and drank openly, and now that he had won my heart and my hand, I had no more to say about it. I learned that quickly, violently, and completely.

  He was going to get the big break, the great contract, the right agent, the right coach, meet the right executive. His four homers in a doubleheader while he was on the brink of destruction were—to me—like another Clovis Payoff. It proved to Neal in the saddest, sorriest, worst way that if he could just do that again, show some incredible talent, he could make it in spite of everything.

  His whole life and legacy were wrapped in unrealistic hopes and dreams that had Clovis Payoffs built in. Some power, some force, some evil allowed these brief glimpses of success during his darkest hours. It reminded me of the only time I had ever tried a slot machine, at Las Vegas Night in the local VFW hall. I fed two dollars’ worth of quarters into the machine.

  With my second to last quarter, I won a dollar. I should have realized I was not going to do better than spend a dollar seventy-five to “win” a dollar. Rather than lose the whole two dollars and get one in return, I considered the four quarters I had won as gravy, not really mine, just something to keep playing with. How can you do better than to play with the machine’s money? I wouldn’t realize until later that this was my money, that I could have reduced my losses.

  Before I had finished, I had spent my own two dollars and two of the four quarters I felt I had won. Five quarters dropped into the pan, and I was hooked. One of these was going to pay off big. The bell would sound, the light would flash, and people would gather to see me trying to contain all the quarters.

  But of course that didn’t happen. Those four- and five- and even another four-quarter payoff were just Clovis tricks. Every time I seemed to be close to cashing out, I got a reprieve to keep me in the game. Finally, I had spent my two dollars and about another three I had won in small increments. I didn’t like that. I got another five dollars’ worth of quarters and went through that in about twenty minutes.

  When it was over, I felt stupid. I hated myself, and I saw my husband and his family in a new light.

  The more Neal drank and the more he counted on dumb luck to not just pull him through but to also make him a success, the more miserable he became. He evolved into something totally other than what I had fallen in love with. I didn’t know this man, yet I knew him all too well.

  And now, on the stoop across the street from where the new, true, real love of my life played fastpitch, I knew what I would do and what I would not do. I would not tell Elgin everything; I would do that much for Neal. I would cover for him. Yet neither would I write him a letter that relieved him of guilt for what he had done to me, to my unborn daughter, and to my son. I would not provide him another Clovis Payoff at the most critical hour of his life.

  I wouldn’t be looking for any payoffs either. I would, as I had done since I left that trailer, fighting tears, make my own good fortune. I didn’t want riches. I didn’t want comfort. I didn’t want luck.

  I wanted my son to know how to work and how to think and how to set his priorities. I had the feeling that everything I could see and feel and touch would blow away one day, while only the truly valuable stuff—the love, the people, the values, the honor, the honesty—would remain.

  I looked up and sighed a thank-you, assuming God had allowed me a bit of His wisdom. And I started home.

  16

  The sweater had proved needless. The sky was now black, but it was still hot out. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until I heard my sandals scuff the pavement. How old must I look, walking that way in the prim
e of my life?

  As I rounded the corner toward the hotel, I passed a young couple in front of their brownstone. In the light from the street lamp they sat, not moving, not even talking. They weren’t looking at each other or at anything in particular. I guessed them in their late teens, maybe early twenties.

  As the young man stared vacantly across the street, the woman caressed his back with long, light strokes. It seemed an almost unthinking, idle gesture, and yet it stabbed me with pain. Did they know, could they know what they had? I wanted to run to them, to tell them. Capture this! Keep this! This is love, casual and easy and comfortable, but not to be taken for granted! One of you will change, your true colors will emerge, and the caresses will stop, the relationship will change. It will fade like the light on a summer’s night, here all day, bright, in your eyes, then gradually disappearing as the darkness sneaks up on you.

  I lowered my eyes and hurried, pain deep in my soul, the agony of loneliness and need. I wanted to sit on the steps somewhere and touch someone or be touched.

  I got off the ancient elevator and sat on the creaky steps within earshot of our rooms. I heard the television, Elgin switching between a late Cub game and a show I had forbidden him to watch. He was so deprived. No movies. No good clothes or sports equipment. What was wrong with the program? I couldn’t remember. Too adult, I guessed. A lot like Elgin. I felt generous, a mother full of mercy, making noise opening the door so he had time to switch back to channel nine.

  I could see from Elgin’s face that he had decided not to say anything about the letter. He just stared at me, clearly wondering if I was okay.

  “How’re the Cubs doin?” I asked.

  “Down by two in the sixth,” he said. “What else is new?”

  “It’s hot out,” I said.

  “It’s hot in,” he said.

  I smiled. “You’re a sweet boy, El. A good boy.” A flicker of guilt passed his eyes, probably about the TV.

  He changed the subject. “Second and third and no outs in the top of the fifth, and they don’t score.”

  “Strikeouts?” I said.

  He shook his head. “Groundout to third. Looked the runner back. Then a liner to short, doubled off Hobson at second.”

  “Was he too far off?”

  “Nah. Elliott and Sanders both should have been trying to hit to the right side and at least get one of those guys in. Doesn’t anybody play the percentages anymore?”

  I shook my head and shrugged. “Turn it off a minute, son.”

  Elgin all but ran to the TV. Then he sat on the couch, looking expectant.

  “Your dad’s been hospitalized again.”

  “With those tremors or whatever they are?”

  “No,” I said, and moved a kitchen chair to sit facing him. “He cut his arm and—”

  “How bad?”

  “Pretty bad, I guess. I don’t know all the details, so don’t ask.”

  “But—”

  “It looks like he’s gonna be okay. He sends his love to you and—”

  “And to you, Momma?”

  “To you, Elgin, now stop interrupting. He wants my forgiveness.”

  “He’s always wanted that.”

  “Elgin!”

  “Sorry.”

  “You may not be old enough to understand, but I’m gonna tell you a story to explain why I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do.”

  I tried to tell him all about the Clovis Payoff, but he wasn’t buying.

  “Momma, forgiveness is just forgiveness. He’s not gonna go getting his hopes up about anything just because you do what you were supposed to do a long time ago.”

  “So I’ve been wrong all these years?”

  “Seems like it. I mean, Daddy’s been saying he was sorry and begging you to forgive him ever since I can remember.”

  “And ever since I can remember, I’ve seen no change, no repentance. Nothin’s changed except how bad he feels. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have told you all this. You’re too young to understand.”

  “I understand all right,” Elgin said. “I’m not saying Daddy deserves it. It just seems like forgiveness has to be without any, um, any—”

  “Strings attached?”

  “Yeah, isn’t that what you always say?”

  “That’s when you and I are squabblin about something and we ask each other to forgive. That’s unconditional. That means there’s no ifs. You know.”

  “So what’s the difference with you and Daddy?”

  I had heard enough. I didn’t know if it was because Elgin was so young and naive and stubborn, or because I knew he was right. Neal needed grace and mercy and unconditional forgiveness. That wouldn’t mean I was saying he was right or innocent or worthy. It certainly wouldn’t mean I still loved him or wanted him back. The question was whether Neal would understand it. For his own good, for his own protection, for the sake of everybody—especially Elgin—I couldn’t take the risk. Unconditionally forgiving Neal would cost me nothing but pride in trying to get the words out.

  The boy I had fallen in love with in high school and the man I had grown to hate were as different as angels and demons. Here he was, sober and unable to get booze in prison, and what kind of a man was he? Like before he had turned to alcohol? No. Still a child, whimpering, selfish, a dolt. I was not about to let myself be used by him again. I may have held some cards in his game of life, but now was not the time to play them.

  I dragged my chair back to the kitchen.

  “So, we’re done talking?” Elgin said.

  I nodded. “I am. I wasn’t asking your advice, you know. I was tellin you something.”

  He said something under his breath.

  “What did you say, young man?”

  “I said, ‘Truth hurts.’”

  “Because I don’t do what you say, I don’t like hearing the truth?”

  He turned on the TV again. “Well, it is the truth.”

  “Maybe when you grow up and go through a few of life’s valleys, you can start tellin me how to live.”

  “I wouldn’t even try.”

  “Don’t get smart, Elgin.”

  “I’m not trying to be smart, Momma. I just—”

  “There is a lot you don’t know, and I wish you’d just trust me. If I can’t tell you stuff without this happening, then I just won’t tell you stuff anymore.”

  He had turned his back to me and was watching the Cubs fall farther behind.

  I was suddenly ravenous. I retrieved what was left in the oven and remembered that this was the same fare we had eaten the day we moved in.

  I ate quickly and more than I should have. I had always been trim and never worried about my weight, but when I overate I felt uncomfortable. Plus I had argued with Elgin, which I hated more than anything. I couldn’t begin to tell him what he meant to me. How do you tell someone his age how committed you are to making him into the opposite of his father? If Elgin had an inkling of his importance to me, it would be too much for him.

  How I hated to have anything between us!

  I cleaned up the kitchenette and went to sit with him. He was clearly not angry. I doubted he had backed down from his position, but he wasn’t the type to make me suffer, even when we disagreed. I put my arm around him and he let me cuddle him. I couldn’t get interested in the game. I was thinking of that stupid pitching machine.

  I had wanted it at one time, thinking of Elgin’s future and knowing it was one of the few things of value Neal owned. But we had no place to set it up. Elgin obviously didn’t need it. Apparently, it was on its way anyway. That would be fun to see: Ricardo Bravura taking delivery of a several-hundred-pound contraption he wouldn’t even recognize.

  I decided to write the chaplain and inform him that Neal Woodell was indeed not my husband, but that he was the father of our son. I would say that I was—what would be the right word?—upset, troubled, saddened, something, to hear of Neal’s latest troubles. I would not be mean, not say he was getting what he deserved and I was sorry he h
adn’t succeeded in killing himself. I would be careful to be cool without being nasty, and yet I wanted Mr. Wallace to tell that no-good—to tell Neal to write to his son.

  “That’s all the boy lives and dies for,” I would write later. “Every day he looks for that letter from his daddy. And then we get this. Mr. Wallace, if you have any influence on Neal, get him to write something, anything to his son. And please look it over if you have to. I will read it before I show it to my son, and I don’t want any of this mess in it.

  “As for forgiving Neal, you can tell him I didn’t speak to that. I’m still thinking and praying about it. Maybe someday I can talk to you about it. It’s not as simple as it seems, that’s all I can say.”

  As I sat on the couch with Elgin, framing the letter in my mind, Elgin suddenly turned and stared at me.

  “Just one question, Momma,” he said, unsmiling. “When was the last time the Cubs had a pitcher who could get a bunt down?”

  I swatted him and went to write my letter. “I’m serious,” he called from the couch. “Did you see this? The runners were going! He pops it to the pitcher and we were lucky they didn’t turn a triple play on us!”

  The game wound down as I finished writing. Elgin wandered out and sat as I folded the letter.

  “Can I see?”

  “Private,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “If it was lovey-dovey I could understand,” he said. “But you’re probably just telling him how much you still hate him.”

  “I’m not even writing directly to him.”

  “I’m not either,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not writing him again until he writes to me. I’m sorry he got hurt, but why couldn’t he even write and tell me?”

  I shrugged and looked away.

  “Momma, I want to go see him.”

  “Elgin! It’s been months since you heard from him. If he’s not worth a letter, how can he be worth a visit?”

  “I just think he’s forgotten me, and if I go see him, he’ll remember me.”