by Jack Weyland
You’d have thought I was a movie star or some kind of celebrity, the way they fussed over me. They were all so complimentary and gracious and had such great stories to tell about when they were my age.
Catherine, Julia’s sister, joined us. “Well, Adam, you’re quite the ladies’ man, aren’t you?” she said.
I laughed. “I guess I am.”
“Thank you for being so kind to us.”
“My pleasure.”
“Where are you going after you leave here?” Julia asked.
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“I have a small cottage in the back. You’re welcome to stay there for free if you’ll keep working for my friends and me.”
“Actually, I am between . . . jobs.”
“Then stay here. We’re nice people, aren’t we?”
“Very nice.”
“Then stay.”
So I moved in. I agreed to do the plumbing and home repairs for Julia and her friends almost for free. They would pay for the parts and materials and give me a little extra for gas money and such, but I would essentially be their slave.
The next day I took Catherine’s place at her post at the card table and collected money from everyone who came to the beach. In the afternoon I worked for Catherine and Julia’s friends.
That evening, I called my mom and told her I would not be starting at BYU in the fall.
“What are you going to do?”
“I just need to find myself, that’s all. I’m fine. I’ve got a job, and I’m staying with good people. I’m doing mostly repair work on homes. Let me give you my phone number and address in case you need to get hold of me.”
I also called my grandfather and told him what I was doing and where I would be staying. He tried to talk me into coming back to work with him, but I told him I couldn’t do that. At least, not right then. I asked him to tell Brianna I was okay and that I’d call her sometime.
And then I took the battery out of my cell phone and threw it in the trunk of my car.
I didn’t go to church on Sunday. I just didn’t feel like it.
A few days later Brianna came to the beach while I was on duty at the card table. I watched as she parked her car and then walked toward me. I panicked. I didn’t know what to say, and I couldn’t even guess what she was going to say to me.
“That will be two dollars, please,” I said.
She handed me a couple of dollar bills.
“I’ll need to stamp your hand,” I said.
She let me do that.
“Enjoy yourself at the beach.”
She didn’t move.
“So, how’s Thomas?” I asked.
“He came to visit me. In fact, he just left yesterday.”
“And did he give you a ring?”
“He showed me a ring. I didn’t take it, though.”
“Holding out for something more expensive, right? That’s my girl. Columbia Law School must be so proud of you.”
“I don’t deserve that kind of treatment, Adam.”
I sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. How about if I treat you like everybody else who comes here? Have a nice day and don’t forget to put on sunscreen!”
A couple with two little kids stopped to pay their money. “You’re in the way here,” I said to Brianna.
She stepped aside so the dad could pay me.
After they left, she asked, “What are your plans?”
“I don’t have any.”
“Are you going to go back and work for your grandfather?”
“No, probably not.”
“Why not?”
“I’m settled in here now. Everybody loves me. I’m a productive citizen of this community. I’m sure that’s a shock to you.”
“How long are you going to stay here?”
“You’re badgering the witness.”
“You owe me something, Adam. I need to know what you’re going to do.”
“What can I do? What can either of us do? You have to keep working to pay off your loans. That, of course, will take years, even if you keep working for the same law firm. And if I go to college, then that just adds to the time it will take us to pay off our loans. So what do we do?”
“I’m sure we can work something out. I’m very disappointed in you, Adam. I don’t understand why you’d just walk away from me and your grandparents and just . . . just give up.”
I stood and turned to face the beach. The wind had picked up and it began to rain. I shook my head. “My problem isn’t that I don’t know what to do.” I sighed. “My problem is—I don’t know who I am.”
I risked one painful look at her. “Brianna, until I figure that out, I’m not going to be much use to anyone.”
She had a hurt look on her face, but I didn’t care about her pain as much as I did mine. “You know what? You’d be better off marrying Thomas.”
She stood there in the rain, looking at me as though I’d slapped her, then turned and hurried away to where her car was parked and drove away.
Other than that, and the brief rain shower that drove all the visitors into the shelter for half an hour, it was a pretty normal day at the beach.
14
I have a vivid memory from when I was very young, maybe four or five, of sitting on the floor with a new set of building blocks on Christmas Day, putting together a fort by stacking one block on top of another. I remember choosing each block carefully and making sure the stacks were straight and neat.
That was how I felt about what I was doing while staying with Julia and Catherine. I was starting from scratch to define who I was and what I was going to be in the future.
What would I adopt into my new life? I could choose anything I wanted because nobody in Spring Lake really knew anything about me. I could become whoever I wanted to become. I had, in some ways at least, severed all connections to family and friends. I was on my own, and everything from the past was on the chopping block.
It turns out I wasn’t the first to have stayed in the cottage for an extended period of time. Julia told me about Mr. Appleton. He had stayed there almost a year before one day disappearing, never to be heard from again.
“We’ve kept all his things in the garage,” Catherine said.
“How long has he been gone?”
“Almost two years now,” she said.
“I think we should toss his things,” Julia said. “We’re not a storage dump. We need to be able to use our garage. Will you go through Mr. Appleton’s things and throw out everything you think he won’t care about if he shows up some day and asks where his things are?”
I started right away. The first thing I did was haul all his boxes from the garage into the cottage. I picked a box and began going through it.
In the first box I found a framed picture of Mr. Appleton. He was of slight build, wore a mustache, combed over his bald spot on top with hair from the sides, and in the picture was wearing a bow tie.
“What kind of man was he?” I asked Julia at lunch.
“He was a quiet man,” she said. “He didn’t talk to many people and stayed in his room most of the time. Once in a while we’d see him on the beach. He’d always wear a white shirt with his swimming suit. He never went swimming though. Mostly he just sat on a towel and watched everyone else.”
I returned to my work. A few minutes later I came across a cardboard box that had been taped shut, whereas the others had just had been closed by interlocking the flaps.
I undid the tape and opened the box and saw that it was filled with pornographic videos.
It was a shock seeing them. My first impulse was to watch them. There was a TV and videotape player in the cottage. I could have locked the doors and viewed them right then or done so late at night.
But then I thought about Mr. Appleton. I looked at his picture again and imagined him in some tiny apartment, all by himself, with the blinds pulled, going through the same pathetic routine, day in, day out, for the rest of his life. And when he died, who would
mourn him? Who would care that he lived or died? No children to mourn him. No wife to miss him. No loved ones or friends to talk about his contribution to their lives.
This is not who I am, I thought. Not now and not ever!
I carried the box outside, went to the garage, grabbed an ax, returned to the box and smashed every video into pieces. Then I stuffed the remnants into trash bags and dumped the bags into garbage cans that would be picked up in the morning.
As I was chopping them up, I felt a sense of power. It felt good to have faced an old temptation and to have come away victorious.
That was the first characteristic I chose for the new me. I would not become a slave to a terrible addiction.
Saturday night a new challenge arose, and that was whether or not I would go to church in the morning.
The question that came to my mind was: Is the only reason I go to church because of my mom and dad? Did I serve a mission only because I was told that’s what I should do? Did I live the Word of Wisdom only because of my family? And, if that is so, then if I separate myself from my family, do I end my involvement in the Church?
The answer should have been obvious, but in my state of mind, it wasn’t clear to me.
Julia asked me what I would be doing on Sunday. I said I didn’t know.
“You could come to church with us.”
“Why do you go to church?”
“Because we believe in God. Don’t you?”
I had to think about it. “I guess I do.”
“Then you should go to church.”
It seemed like a good argument, so I changed my mind and decided to go to church. By going to the library and checking phone directories, I found that the nearest ward was in North Brunswick. I called and learned from a recorded message when the meetings were held.
And so I went to church. People there seemed happy to see me. A counselor in the bishopric asked me how long I’d be in the ward. “I’m not sure. Maybe for a long time.”
“We could use your help,” he said.
“Thanks. I’m glad somebody can.”
The next week, I again tried to reconstruct myself from scratch. In a way it was an exciting experience, deciding what would be the foundation of my life and what I could discard.
I began praying and reading the scriptures again. Not because I was supposed to, not because I’d been told to do it, but because I needed the comfort I’d always found in prayer and scripture reading.
After two weeks I had pretty much fixed everything that Julia and her friends had for me. But by then word had gotten around about a new fix-it man in town.
I began to charge for the work I did. Not much at first though. I was just glad to be considered useful.
Julia would only let me work for someone she approved. She said she was worried about people who might take advantage of my willingness to help. But Julia also had a higher criterion. There had to be an overriding reason, other than saving money, why I would work for someone.
One day, just as we were about to eat dinner, the phone rang. Julia picked it up. “Yes, he’s here, why do you ask?”
She listened. “All right, I’ll ask him if he’d like to help you.” Julia turned to me. “This is a couple who teach school in town. They’ve got a leaking pipe. They just got home, and there’s an inch of water in the bathroom, and they can’t stop it.”
“Get their address. I’ll go right over,” I said.
Their names were Derek and Elizabeth Conroy, and they were standing at the front door of their house waiting for me.
I immediately liked them. In spite of the emergency, they were able to joke about it as they escorted me into the bathroom. The bathroom floor was covered with water, and there was a dark patch of soaked carpet several feet into the hall.
They were an energetic couple in their early thirties. Derek was nearly bald and had a beard. He wore slacks and a turtleneck. Elizabeth had short hair, and a pixie face. With her energy and enthusiasm, she reminded me of someone who’d play Peter Pan onstage.
I checked the pipes under the sink, but they weren’t leaking. I turned off the water to the bathroom. “Do you have a mop? Let’s get rid of the water on the floor first.”
“What do you think caused this?” Derek asked.
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said.
“Are you hungry?” Elizabeth asked. “We’re having shish kebabs. I can put one on for you.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“I’m putting one on for you anyway.”
I suspected the wax seal at the bottom of the toilet had cracked and begun to leak. With the water turned off at its source, I flushed the toilet to empty the bowl and tank, then loosened the mounts and lifted the toilet off its base and set it off to one side on the bathroom floor.
“Are you a certified plumber?” Derek asked.
“No. But I do this all the time.”
“I’m sure you do, but I can’t really figure out what you’re doing, moving the toilet.”
“Derek, quit harassing the nice man and come and eat!” Elizabeth called from the kitchen.
“She’s right, sir,” I said. “Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, all right.” Reluctantly, he went and joined his wife.
“He called you, sir, didn’t he?” Elizabeth teased. “You’re getting to be so grown-up!”
I loved the way she laughed.
I discovered I’d been right. The wax seal was cracked in two. On my way to my car, I said, “I’ve found your problem. I’m going to the hardware store for parts. I’ll have you back in business in no time.”
“Great!” Elizabeth said. “I’m not above going next door and asking to use their bathroom, but my husband is a bit old-fashioned. I’ve seen that pained look on his face before. For his sake, I hope it won’t take too long.”
“I don’t have a pained look on my face,” he said.
“You do, Derek, you definitely do. Next thing, you’ll be jumping up and down.”
Thirty minutes later I had replaced the wax seal and had the toilet working again. I charged them for parts and then asked an additional twenty dollars.
“Is that all you want?” Derek asked.
“Yeah, that’s all.”
“Stay for your shish kebab,” Elizabeth said. “It’s your reward for fixing us up so fast.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you, but I really should be going.”
She thrust the shish kebab toward me like a sword. “Look, I don’t want to hear another word from you! Take the kabob and sit down and eat! Derek, you’re excused to use the bathroom.”
Derek hesitated.
“This nice man won’t think less of you if you excuse yourself. You can even turn on the fan so we won’t suspect what you’re doing.” She turned to me and winked. “We won’t know, will we?”
Derek nodded and went to use the bathroom.
“Sit down and start eating,” she said. “I’ve got dessert too. Baklava from a Greek restaurant. We get it take-out once a week.”
We both sat down.
“Catherine says you both teach in town,” I said.
“We teach at the middle school. He teaches science, and I teach English.”
“How do you like doing that?”
“We love it. The thing is, we can make a difference in these kids’ lives. We can change the world one kid at a time. That’s what’s so exciting about it.”
We heard the fan go on.
Elizabeth laughed. “My husband is so predictable, but I love him dearly.”
“I can see that.”
A few minutes later Derek rejoined us.
It was comfortable being around them. They were so animated and happy and excited about life and their work as teachers.
I ended up staying another hour. We ate and talked. Mainly I asked them about teaching. They were all too happy to tell me.
“You seem awfully interested in teaching. How come?” Elizabeth asked.
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br /> “I’m not sure I’m interested in teaching. It’s just that I want to make a difference. I want to wake up in the morning excited about what I’m going to be doing. I want to believe that I’m doing something to make the world a better place.”
“That’s teaching!” Elizabeth enthused.
“Or plumbing,” Derek said. “You certainly made our world a better place.”
“Of course some days as a teacher are the worst days of your life,” Elizabeth said. “But on other days, it’s exciting to see a student who’s been struggling suddenly catch fire. On days like that, there’s no better feeling.”
All the way back to my cottage, I kept thinking about what it would be like to be a teacher—to make a difference in a boy or girl’s life. It sounded great to me.
• • •
Spring Lake has two kinds of people, those who live in elaborate homes and those who don’t. For the most part, I dealt with those who didn’t have much money. Word got around, and I kept busy.
But in the second week of September, Julia got a call from one of the richest women in town, a woman in her late seventies by the name of Mary Livingston Cartwright.
“I hear you have someone staying with you who can fix things,” Mrs. Cartwright said.
“He has been known to fix things, but I’m not sure he’d want to work for you.”
“I hate trying to get people to come. They say they’ll be here on a certain day, but they don’t show up. So you call them and they make another promise and they show up four hours late. And then they tear everything apart and don’t show up again for weeks. Please, let him come and work for me.”
“Well, let me talk to him. Please hold the line.”
Apparently, Julia and Mrs. Cartwright had previously had some run-in, and Julia couldn’t help tainting the request. “You want to do work for someone who’s rich and snooty?”
“Why did she call me?”
“She can’t get good help.”
“I’ll do it.”
“She won’t pay you what you’re worth.”
“Nobody else has.”
“She never talks to Catherine when she comes to the beach. Oh, no, she’s too good to talk to the help.”