by John Lynch
“Steven, this is not a game, man,” Carlos says, leaning in to me. “We’re not playing hooky, you know? Carlos has to be the same cat in a hotel on the road as he is praying in front of people on Sunday. Otherwise we’re just playing dress-up, man. This is me, Steven. I don’t get no more religious than this. Lotsa people probably wish I would. I just don’t think God is one of them. You know?
“Listen, we don’t need places like this to become more like church. We need churches to become more like this place. You know?”
“I think I do, Carlos. I’m sure sorry for what I said earlier. You’re as self-respecting a pastor as I’ve ever known.”
“Thanks, man. That means a lot to me.” Carlos smiles warmly.
“So, Carlos, does everyone on the deck crowd go to your church?” I ask.
“Oh, no, man, are you kidding? Would you want to go to church with Hank?”
Everyone laughs, and Hank just nods sheepishly.
We are interrupted by Bo shouting something to an employee, then laughing his big, barrel-chested laugh. It seems to signal the end of our time together. Carlos says his good-byes. Hank takes our pile of cash and debit cards up to the front register. Cynthia stands up, gives Andy and me big hugs, and then walks over to my wife and sits next to her.
“How are you feeling about all this, Lindsey?”
“Hopeful, I think.”
“Lindsey, this whole regaining of trust doesn’t come overnight. There will be some hard times. Steven will fail again. He will explode in anger again. And you’ll feel the same fear all over again. But something else is happening too. Your husband, I think, is beginning to humble his heart. So God is now free every moment to let his new story begin to dominate his experience. That will change everything.”
Standing behind my wife as Cynthia says this, I put my hands on Lindsey’s shoulders and say, “I want to say this in front of you guys. Lindsey, you have my permission to let Cyn or Hank or Andy or anybody know when you think I’m starting to get out of control. No more secrets. No more hiding.”
Cynthia adds, “You’ll need to find others, who can stand with you as you begin to risk learning how to open your heart again. I’d be honored to be one you can grow to count on. This doesn’t have to take nine years. We just didn’t have anyone. You guys have all this in front of you. You just have to let others care for you.”
Lindsey grasps Cynthia’s hand. “Thank you, Cynthia. You’ve been great. This is all so new. I don’t know what’s coming for our family. I’m hopeful, but it’s scary too.”
For a moment all the strangeness returns. This is all because of me. Everyone’s stepping to the plate to meet with my wife because of what I’ve done. I feel like a recovering monster, still capable of wiping out a community with a single swipe. It’s hard to believe this new identity when I am daily faced with the living consequences of the old one.
But I look over at Andy. He’s smiling at me. I’ve learned the meaning behind that smile.
Don’t be afraid. I know who you are. You know too much to listen to the lies now. Nothing to come can change that. I’ve got your back.
I smile back.
Thank you. Thank you for being my friend.
“I Was Playing You Like a Gibson Hummingbird.”
(Friday, December 4)
The last few years I’d grown to really dislike Christmas. A whole month to magnify how unhappy Lindsey and I were. A month to regret. A month to bluff. This season is different. The pressure and tension are mostly gone.
Last Saturday, I actually put up Christmas lights out front—by myself. First time ever. As a kid, Dad always did them, by himself. I could stand by and watch if I wanted, but I always felt like I was in the way. I could get him a hammer or steady the ladder, but I was never allowed to put up the lights with him. By the time I got in junior high, I just avoided the whole painful event. I think he was just insecure about the whole deal. Mr. Magnusson, across the street, always had this incredible animated display. He had deer with moving heads before you could buy them in the stores.
In recent years I’ve always had neighborhood kids string up the lights for money. Not this year. I put ’em up. They’ve looked better. It definitely looks like a rookie put them up. But I like them kind of loosely hanging there, a little uneven, but happy. Kind of like our lives now. Not so tied down—like our old displays: they were nice and neat-appearing for the neighbors, but stiff, tight, and cold if you got up close. And I didn’t use those trendy white twinkle lights. I went out and found some of those big, beautiful, bright, old-school bulbs. Andy decks out some of the boats in the marina with them. He says they’re C9s. He tells me they’re the Christmas bulbs the apostles used back in the day.
This afternoon Andy and I are once again in the Electra. We catch the 405 and take the off-ramp up into the familiar hills overlooking Marina del Rey and Venice. Once again he parks the car, facing south, on the same bluff as the first time we came up here. He turns off the lights and then the engine. He takes a long draw from his half-finished cigar, blowing an impressive smoke ring into the cool evening air. I am wearing his Dodgers warm-up jacket. His accommodation to the weather is a long-sleeved T-shirt under his ever-present Hawaiian shirt.
“So… ?” he tosses out into the night air, as if I’m supposed to fill in the rest.
I take the bait.
“Andy, do you know the first evening we came up here, I still wasn’t sure who you were, or what you were up to? I thought to myself, This is how it happens. You hear about it all the time. ‘Promising executive chopped to pieces by serial ax murderer.’ ”
After another smoke ring he replies, “Do you know that first evening, I wasn’t completely certain I wasn’t wasting my time? You, my friend, were a real piece of work.”
“Me? I wasn’t the one acting all Nostradamus-like. You could have told me about the name tag right away, but no-o-o! You wait until I threaten to call the manager!”
“Oh, that was poetry!” Andy slaps his knee. “I was playing you like a Gibson Hummingbird, I was.”
Then we are quiet, content to look out over Los Angeles at night. Looking down into the basin toward the ocean, I try to guess which lights might belong to Bo’s Café. The last six months, since we all met that afternoon on the deck, have radically changed my whole world. It’s been the best six months of my life.
Andy and I continue to meet. I’m now a regular at Bo’s. I’m even bringing a friend from work on occasion. Lindsey and I are now part of Carlos’s church in Hermosa Beach. And I am slowly learning to believe this new DNA God built into me. Lindsey is slowly learning to trust again. I am still more than capable of returning to the old lies. And when I do, I can still hurt my wife and anyone around me. But there hasn’t been a single day when I’ve walked out to the parking lot feeling like I can’t go home.
I rest my hands behind my head. I am searching for words. I want to say something that will convey just how much he has meant to me. But everything sounds trite and insufficient.
“So what have you learned since we first came up here?” he asks.
I pull my gaze away from the lights and look over at him.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Fair enough. Then give me something you’re learning right now.”
“Well, first, I owe you about two hundred apologies for all the arrogant things I said and thought about you. I had you pegged for the longest time as an eccentric, kindly loser. Fascinating, insightful, but still a bit of a loser. Andy, I gave myself permission to discount about half of what you were telling me just because of where you worked, how you dressed, where you lived. How could anything you might say possibly apply to me?”
Andy nods and grins. “I think I knew that from the first evening.”
“Hey, Andy, you got a few more minutes? There’s someone I’ve been trying to help at work.”
“Sure, I’m just a middle-class guy working at a marina. What else have I got to do? Go home and watch rer
uns of Cops?”
“You’re not ever going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Nope.”
“Her name’s Meagan. She’s kind of a whiz kid. Until recently she was a designer down on the first floor. But this kid’s got incredible talent. She was the lead on our last two big video-game best sellers. Last year she took her team through a design concept for a hockey game that has already gotten out into the market. It’s actually started to change the way animators describe movement. She can’t be twenty-five.”
Andy sits up. “It’s about time you people got someone improving that. The animation in most games looks like ‘Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln’ at Disneyland back a few years. Lincoln would bend his arms in ways that weren’t humanly possible. He was like Gumby in a stovepipe hat. I’m sure he frightened the children. He always freaked me out.”
“Uh… stay with me here, Andy. Anyway, this kid’s a mess. She’s more arrogant than me. If she wasn’t so talented, she’d already be gone. Meagan’s already had run-ins with several executive team members. Last month she publicly called out the head of operations to fix a ‘ridiculously flawed system’ or she’d go elsewhere. Visratech doesn’t want to lose her, but she’s getting increasingly hard to keep.”
“So?”
“So, the kid comes to me two weeks ago. Walks into my office and says, ‘Mr. Kerner, I think I need your help.’
“Inside I’m thinking, My help? I’m the one who’s about to have to can you.
“The conversation goes something like this:
“ ‘I don’t know if word’s getting back to you,’ she says, ‘but I’m not doing well with the big dogs.’
“ ‘I’ve maybe heard a few things… in passing.’
“ ‘Well, anyway, Mr. Kerner, I kind of watch you.’
“ ‘You do?’
“ ‘Yep. I do. You didn’t used to come down to the first floor much. And when you did, you always had this condescending, forced smile. Like you were thinking, Well, aren’t these little people working hard. Bless their hearts, each and every one of them.’
“ ‘Speak your mind. Don’t hold back, Meagan.’
“ ‘What I’m trying to say is that something’s changed. You hang out. You don’t have that stupid smile as often. You don’t come off like you’re better than us. You ask us for help. And you’re starting to listen to us.’
“ ‘Thanks, Meagan. I think.’
“ ‘So I’m thinking, If I’m gonna have a chance to make it here, maybe this guy can help me.’
“ ‘You want my help?’
“ ‘I know you’re really busy. But I’ve got a chance to do something I’ve wanted to do all my life. And now that I’m here, I’m screwing it all up. I always have, Mr. Kerner. Will you help me? I can’t fail at this.’ ”
Andy is listening intently while savoring the last inches of his cigar.
“She goes on to tell me about her relationship with her dad. They don’t talk; haven’t for six years. She says he doesn’t even know about her success with the new video games. It’s killing her. Andy, I really like this kid. I see a lot of me in her. But I have no idea what to tell her. I just want to say the right things to fix her. But I don’t know how to fix her. The last thing this kid needs is another authority letting her down. Do you have any experience in this?”
“Other than with the marketing VP of the company she works for? Duh, nope.”
“You know what I mean. Would you help me?”
“Steven, in my office at the marina I have this statement tacked up on the wall: ‘Integrity is proven when you admit what you cannot do and honor what you say you can.’
“What do you think that means?”
“I repeat to myself, ‘… when you admit what you cannot do…’
“I think you’re saying that bluffing and trying to make Meagan think I have all the answers will cause her to not trust the answers I do have.”
“Good answer. Very good answer.” He pauses for a moment.
“Steven, do you remember the first time I brought you to Bo’s? You asked me what my real issues were. I never answered you that day.”
“I noticed.”
“Steven, my dad has been my issue from the time I was seventeen. No, probably from the time I was five. Classic father from that generation. It’s like they all took the same course, used the same formula: Withhold affirmation, expect what no one can do, and then give a nonverbal response that communicates disappointment. Nothing I did was good enough, fast enough, or successful enough.
“When I was a kid, he used to let me wash the car with him. One day, when I was about seven, he asked if I wanted to dry it off. It was a big deal. He never let me dry it. I worked so hard on that car. When I got done, while I was still standing there, he completely redid it.”
Andy is staring out into space, looking as if he’s been transported back to that moment.
“It’s crazy that I still remember it so clearly. The garden hose was red. I was wearing a green shirt with stripes. Steven, what I did, who I was, was never enough.
“From early on, there was this message continually running around in my head: if I could just do this or accomplish this, Dad would finally be proud of me. Eventually I did things not out of love for him, but to prove that I was worthy of his praise. It’s wired into us. A dad becomes that barometer of worth for a kid—boy or girl. If we don’t get affirmation or acceptance, we can walk through life grasping for it and demanding it out of almost everyone. People in authority don’t have a chance with us. We demand so much out of them, trying to rewrite what we didn’t get. They’re always set up to fail us.
“So, I learned to never fail but to win… and then some. It caused me to blur the lines of integrity just to make sure I didn’t lose my place. It drove me to be right at all costs. To see others as in my way or as enemies to be defeated. It eventually, predictably, drove me to character failure.
“For decades I was certain he was my life issue. If I could just get him to change, to own, to understand. If I could learn to not care about his criticisms; if I could finally achieve something that would once and for all settle the issue of my worth… .
“But ultimately, he wasn’t my issue. I was my issue. I was bullying my way through life, trying to be enough to overcome another’s assessment of me. That’s what Cynthia and Keith could see.
“Meagan isn’t that different from anyone else. She’s just another on an endless conveyor belt of those who’ve been trapped into believing a lie about themselves.”
As he tells his own story, I see myself, I see Meagan, I see hundreds of others. Lies picked up when we’re young can stay with us a lifetime.
I look over at Andy and shake my head.
He asks, “What?”
I answer, “Thanks. That’s all.”
“For what?”
“For being a good man. You really could have screwed me up. But you didn’t. You’re helping break some pretty deep patterns, just by being who you said you were.”
“Yeah, well, you’re welcome, kid. It’s been a good ride.”
Andy starts up the Electra. And we’re off, rumbling slowly back down the hill. Once again I am aware of the feel of the leather seat, the wind lifting my shirt. He pops a CD out of the player I recently had installed for him.
“I love these things!” he shouts to me over the wind and engine. “They’re so shiny! What’ll it be? B. B. King?”
I pull down the sun visor and grab U2’s The Joshua Tree out of the disc holder.
“This time I pick,” I tell him, handing him the CD and replacing the other.
He grins and takes a big puff off his cigar as the music starts up.
I love this. I hope these rides in this ridiculous giant boat never end.
And Back Again
(Saturday Morning, December 19)
Lindsey and I are awakened by a loud knock at the door. The clock says 6:22. I stumble downstairs and open the front door. Hidden behind several
grocery bags is—Andy.
“You gonna let me in, or should I make breakfast out here on the lawn?”
I am yet unable to form words, so I point him toward the kitchen.
Unpacking what looks like a cappuccino maker, he says, “I wasn’t sure you folks made coffee at home, so I took the liberty. I used to think this whole overpriced steamed-coffee deal was a marketer’s gimmick. But if you haven’t savored a well-made breve latte with a hint of cinnamon, well, children, put down the manna. We are about to cross over the Jordan!”
Several minutes later Lindsey shuffles into the kitchen. By now Andy is pouring juice.
“Good morning, Lindsey,” Andy says. “Is Jenny up yet?”
“Hello, Andy.” She walks over and gives him a hug. “Jennifer’s still asleep. Might I ask what we’re doing?”
“Well, I’m getting out of town for the holidays. It gets a little dicey this time of year for a widower. Lonely isn’t so lonely if you’re in a place where you’re not supposed to have family. So, I mix it up each year. Palm Springs this time. But I didn’t want to leave without saying Merry Christmas to one of my favorite families.
“My clan is originally from Norway,” he says as he opens the oven door. “This recipe for cherry streusel was handed down to me from many generations back. I make it every Christmas. So this year I make it for you.”
Lindsey immediately understands the importance of the moment.
“Oh, Andy. Thank you.” She hugs him again.
Within minutes the two of them are bustling around like an old married couple, setting the table, folding fancy napkins, and cooking up eggs and sausage. Eventually I’m invited to the table. They are already seated. Andy takes off his ball cap, clears his throat, and asks, “May I?”
Lindsey answers, “We’d be honored, Andy.”
“Precious God,” he prays, “thanks for this. You are the giver of everything good. And You are giving the three of us really good lives. You have given us Jesus. And so much has beautifully changed. I do not know where I would be without His love.”