by Fannie Flagg
“Do you ever miss it at all?”
“No, strangely enough, I don’t. Not a minute of it. As a matter of fact, I wish I had stopped years ago. I’m just beginning to realize how much of life I missed. I can’t wait to get out to Sag Harbor for a whole summer. Did I ask you if you sailed?”
“The first time we had lunch.”
“Oh.”
“But I’ve never been on a sailboat in my life.”
“Well, we’ll have to remedy that, young lady. Yes, I didn’t think I would, but I like this retirement. I put in over fifty years and I figure that’s enough for any man.” He smiled and corrected himself. “Or woman.”
“Fifty years. That’s a long time.”
“Yes, but don’t forget, I go a long way back. I started on a little two-hundred-watt radio station in Sidney, Iowa.”
Howard suddenly stopped and motioned for her not to speak. He pointed out a doe and a baby deer across the field, who stood perfectly still, looking at them, then, after a moment, ran back into the woods.
Dena was amazed. “Wow! Are there a lot of deer around here?”
“Oh, yes. We put out a salt lick for them in the back. I’ve seen as many as twenty-five come at one time.”
“I’ve never seen them in the wild like this.”
“I thought you were a country girl.”
“No, not really. I was raised mostly in apartments in the city. My mother worked in department stores.”
“I see. Well, you’re going to have to get out here more often, put some color in those cheeks.” They walked for a while. “You know, the world has come a long way from that little radio station to where we are today. Television. God, I remember when the damn thing started.” He pulled a branch back so Dena could get by. “Murrow and I got so damn excited we could hardly stand it. Hell, we were so naive, we thought it was going to educate and uplift every human being, save humanity from ignorance, stop all the wars. I’m glad he didn’t live to see what’s happening, and it’s only going to get worse, I’m afraid.” Then he chuckled. “Since I’ve retired I found out one more thing about television I didn’t know. It’s a hell of a lot easier to be on it than it is to watch.”
When they reached the stream, Dena looked down at the water. It was so clear that the round, smooth brown and tan pebbles looked as if they were under glass. Howard pulled out a collapsible plastic cup he had in his back pocket and dipped it in the water. “I want you to take a drink of this.”
“You can drink it just like this … right out of the ground?”
“Oh, yes, it’s as pure as it comes. Try it.”
She sipped. It was ice cold and the best water she had ever tasted. “That is wonderful.”
“Isn’t it? Lee says we should bottle it.”
“She’s right.”
They walked over to a log to sit down but Dena was hesitant. “Are there snakes crawling around in there?”
“No. You really are a city girl, aren’t you? Snakes hibernate in the winter.”
“I’m not going to sit on one and wake him up, am I?”
“You’re safe.”
They sat and listened to the sound of the stream for a while. “We had a little farm about ten miles from town and my father used to say, ‘The minute a man gets too far from nature is when he begins to get into trouble.’ He was right, of course, but I didn’t think so at the time. Back then I just thought he was an old fogey, a country bumpkin that didn’t know anything. I just couldn’t wait to shake the dust off my shoes and head for the big city. See the world, be a big shot. But every day I’m out here, I think about him. I realize my old man—who I thought had never amounted to much—had lived one of the best lives a man could live. He was never cruel to a living soul, raised his children, loved his wife, and worked the land.”
Howard seemed lost in thought. “He didn’t talk much about himself. But right after Pearl Harbor, I came home for a visit before going overseas and we took a walk out on the farm. We started talking about the war and he told me something I never knew, something that had happened to him in World War I. He said one night he was in the trenches all by himself, waiting for his replacement, when all of a sudden he heard something and looked up and saw this young German soldier come crawling over. When he saw that German uniform he said it scared him so badly that he just closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. And the next thing he knew that boy had fallen right on top of him. He had hit him in the side of the neck. Dad said he was just a kid—couldn’t have been any older than sixteen or seventeen—and was as scared as he was. My old man said he sat there all night with that boy while that boy bled to death and there wasn’t a thing he could do for him but to hold his hand and try to comfort him.
“Neither one of them understood what the other one was saying but they talked all night. The only thing he could manage to find out was that the boy’s name was Willy. And just as the sun was about to come up, the boy called out for his mother and died right there still holding on to my old man’s hand. That was the first time I ever saw him cry. He cried over some boy he had killed over twenty-five years ago. But … I was so revved up and gung-ho about getting into the war, all I could think was to ask him if he got a medal for killing a German. He said, yes, he got a medal, but the first thing he had done when he got on the boat coming home was throw it overboard. He said there were no heroes in war, just survivors. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, until I got to see the glory of war for myself. And years later, when he was dying—he’d been in a coma for a couple of days—I was sitting beside the bed holding his hand and all of a sudden he opened his eyes and smiled at me. He said, ‘Hello, Willy.’ I think he saw that German boy.”
“Really … do you really think so?”
Howard picked up a rock and looked at it. “I don’t know for sure but you hear all these things about death, people claim they see.… It could be that he just had that boy on his mind. But my old man thought he saw him and he went out peacefully.”
Howard looked at his watch. “We’d better start heading on back. Lee’s been cooking for three days and if we’re late, she’ll kill me.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if it were true, that we really did get to see the people we knew after we die? My father was killed before I was born. I sure would like to get a chance to meet him. I’ve seen pictures of him but he has no idea what I look like. He probably wouldn’t even know who I was if he did see me. I’d probably just be a stranger.”
He smiled at her. “Well, speaking for all fathers, I’m sure he would be very proud of you.”
When they were almost home, Dena said, “Thank you for showing me this … it’s just great. In New York you forget there’s a whole different world out here, not more than just a couple of hours away. The air is so different. What smells so good out here … what is that?”
“Wood smoke. Lee has a fire going.”
“Oh.”
Howard said, “I’ll tell you, if I hadn’t had this place and my boat in Sag Harbor to keep me grounded all these years, I don’t know how I could have done it. You have to get out of that rat race every once in a while or you begin to lose perspective. We start to believe that New York and Los Angeles and the inside of a television studio is all there is to this country. You need to get out among the people, talk to them, find out what they are thinking. I’ve heard more common sense from a bunch of old guys sitting around drinking coffee than I have from some of the smartest, most educated men in the world. If you want to know what’s really happening in this country, ask them and they’ll tell you.”
At that moment, Howard’s grandchildren ran out of the house, excited to see them.
“Grandpa, hurry up, they won’t let us eat till you get here.”
“I’m here,” he laughed. “I’m here.”
Born Again
Selma, Alabama
1977
Sookie had called Dena at work and said that she needed to talk to her as soon as possible and that
it was extremely important but that she could not discuss it over the phone. “It’s something I need to tell you in person.”
Dena was somewhat alarmed and asked if she couldn’t at least give her a hint as to what it was about. Sookie would give her no clue except that something had happened that she needed to share with her and she could only do it face-to-face. “Can you plan a trip here anytime soon?”
“Well, I can try, Sookie; let me call you back.” Dena got on the phone with her secretary and they rerouted a trip she was making to Seattle, Washington, to include a stopover in Atlanta for one night, which was hard to do but they did it. Dena was concerned. Whatever it was, it sounded serious.
The trip was going to be extremely inconvenient but for the first time in her life, Dena was making an attempt to be a good friend. But she also wished that Sookie would get over her silly refusal to travel north of the Mason-Dixon line. By the time she got into Atlanta, she was exhausted.
Sookie had reserved a quiet table for them at the hotel’s dining room, a lovely formal room that was almost empty. They sat across from each other at the dining room table. After the waiter had taken their dinner order, Dena said, “All right, Sookie, what is going on? What is it?”
Sookie looked somber as she began a speech that she had either rehearsed or had given many times before.
“Dena, there is something about me that you should know.”
“You know you can tell me anything, Sookie, whatever it is.”
“Dena, on May the twenty-second, I invited the Lord to come into my life and I have completely accepted Him as my Lord and Savior.”
“What?”
“As my best friend I wanted to share with you that I now have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
“Sookie, surely you’re not serious?”
Sookie leaned toward her. “Of course I’m serious. I would not joke about a thing like this.”
She was not kidding and was waiting for Dena to say something, but Dena was at a complete loss for words.
“Oh … well, uh … I hope you two will be very happy. I mean, what can I say? Is this what you had to tell me?”
“Part of it. Dena, the other thing I wanted to share with you is that two weeks ago Jesus spoke to my heart and told me that you needed to be saved and I would like the opportunity to personally witness for Christ and introduce Him to you.”
Dena was horrified at the prospect and desperately began looking around for the waiter to bring her a drink.
“You know what, Sookie—that’s great, and if that’s what your thing is, fine—whatever floats your boat. But I don’t go in for all that Bible stuff.”
The waiter was there in a second and Dena ordered a double vodka.
Dena looked at Sookie. “Do you still drink or what?”
Sookie gave her a coy little look. “Of course. I’ll have a glass of Chablis. Even Jesus drank wine.”
“I can’t believe you dragged me all the way down here to tell me this. God, Sookie, I thought it was something important.”
Sookie’s eyes got big. “Well, it is important. To me.”
“I can’t believe you’re serious.”
“I thought you would be happy for me. You don’t seem happy for me.”
“Gee, you’re right, Sookie,” Dena said. “I guess I should just be thrilled to find out that my best friend who I thought had good sense tells me all of a sudden she has some hot line to heaven and is chatting on the phone with Jesus Christ every day. And when did you get so religious all of a sudden?”
The waiter brought their drinks. “Dena, I was always a Christian. You knew that, don’t you remember? I always went to Kappa Bible study on Wednesday nights, you forget, and I always went to church. You would just never come with me. I tried but you had all that theater stuff going on. It’s not anything new. It’s just that I have really made a commitment to live as a true Christian and help spread the Gospel to others.”
Dena continued to stare at her in disbelief.
“After all, Dena, it was Jesus Himself who said that unless a man is born again he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven and I don’t want you not to be there with us. I care about you. I worry about your soul.”
Strangely enough, at that moment the waiter brought their meals and Dena’s entrée just so happened to be filet of sole. As Dena tried to enjoy her meal, Sookie kept at her.
“You do believe in God, don’t you? Don’t tell me you don’t even believe in God?”
“Sookie, I love you, but let’s don’t talk about this. You are going to make me say things I don’t want to say. Let’s talk about something else. How are the girls?”
Sookie was clearly disappointed but she gave up gracefully. “All right. I promise I won’t talk about it anymore. But I’m not going to give up on you, Dena; no matter what, I’m going to pray for you.”
“Don’t.”
“Well, I will. I am not going to heaven without you … and I have my sneaky ways.”
On the plane back to New York, Dena was still somewhat astonished at Sookie. She must have been brainwashed. When Dena landed she jumped into a cab and headed for the studio. Opening her purse to pay the driver she saw the pamphlets that Sookie had slipped into her purse. One said, “Are You Saved?” and the other, “Jesus Wants You for a Sunbeam.” The only other thing that made the trip worthwhile was the look she imagined would be on Ira Wallace’s face when he found them on his desk.
But the minute she walked into the office in New York, her secretary handed her a news report that had just come in over the wire.
SAG HARBOR—Howard Kingsley, the retired newscaster and “conscience of broadcasting,” died at his home of heart failure last night. He was 68 years of age.
Good-bye
Sag Harbor, Long Island
1977
Lee Kingsley had called Dena and told her they were going to scatter Howard Kingsley’s ashes in a quiet ceremony from his boat, the Lee Anne. “We want you to be there. I know Howard would have liked that, he thought so much of you. So please come.” Dena said she would. They met at the house in Sag Harbor and went aboard the boat around four—Lee, Howard’s daughter, Anne, her husband, and their two children, Howard’s close friend Charles and his wife, and six or seven friends of theirs she didn’t know. Dena had never been to a funeral of any kind before and was frankly nervous about how to act or what was going to happen, but, Lee took over with her usual grace and made everyone feel comfortable. Anne had come up to her right away and said, “I’m so glad you could come and be with us. Dad thought the world of you.”
They rode out and the water was calm and quiet except for the seagulls following the boat. When they dropped anchor, Lee served champagne. A little later, as the sun was beginning to set, Lee stood up. “As you all know, Howard loved this place from the day we came here thirty-seven years ago. He fell in love with the town and the people, and this boat was where he spent some of his happiest hours. When he was particularly troubled he would get in it and just ride around out here for hours. We never talked much about death but I somehow think this is where he would want to be buried. I asked him once why he never went out any further. And he said, ‘Lee, I love to look for miles across the horizon and clear my head and think about what’s beyond but I never want to lose sight of home.’ And I think that’s how he lived. With his eyes on the horizon but never losing sight of home.”
One by one, those present said a few things about Howard. Dena was too moved to say anything. A friend, John, spoke last. “You know, I thought of hundreds of things I could say, things I’d like to say about Howard. About the kind of man he was, the kind of friend. But you know—even now I can hear that old bastard saying, Get on with it, John, we don’t want any of your overblown sentimental schoolgirl prose. So I’ll just say, Good-bye, and safe harbor, old friend.”
The sun was beginning to fade as they watched the mild wind that had suddenly come up blow the ashes across the water and Lee played Howard’s
favorite record. For such a serious man, most people would not have guessed the Cole Porter tune was the one he loved to sing. As the last of the ashes disappeared, Fred Astaire sang:
You’re the top … you’re the coliseum
You’re the top … you’re the Louvre museum
You’re a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You’re a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet
You’re Mickey Mouse.
Everyone held up their glasses to toast Howard, except Dena, who totally and unexpectedly lost complete control. She burst into tears and began to sob. She tried to stop but she couldn’t; watching those ashes disappear had triggered something inside her. It was so final.
If anyone was surprised by her sudden burst of emotion, they could not have been more surprised than Dena, who prided herself on control at all costs. She was a master at sidestepping feelings, batting them away, avoiding them. She was horrified. What must they be thinking? I am the one person on this boat who knew him the least. Several people came over to her and she kept saying, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” One man put his arm around her shoulder and held her up. She knew she was making a fool out of herself but she couldn’t stop. Finally, Lee came over, sat her down, and tried to comfort her. But she was crying harder than she had ever cried in her life, trying not to make noise, trying to stop. Her nose was running and she didn’t have any Kleenex. Oh, God, she wanted to die. They were all going to think she really had had an affair with him, the way she was carrying on.
As they turned and headed home, they saw that boats of many shapes and sizes had lined up behind them. The boats sat silently, motionless in the water, their owners flying their flags at half-mast as a tribute to their neighbor. The boats remained still until after the Lee Anne had passed, then they all rode out in single file and made a slow circle around the area where Howard’s ashes had been scattered and headed back to harbor.
When Dena saw that, she sobbed even more. By the time they got to the house, Dena had to be put on a bed in a room off the living room. Lee brought her a cold, wet washcloth and put it across Dena’s eyes, now red and swollen. “Sorry … I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’m sorry, really.”