The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg

by Geoff Herbach

  Since I've been back, I've been in Milwaukee, bowling a lot.

  No, I never went. I don't really like going to the doctor. I felt a little better after I stopped drinking, anyway.

  I didn't call them. I thought about them a lot, of course . . . missed them while I was gone . . . you know when I was in jail in Poland. I don't know why I didn't contact them. Maybe I'm still an ass. I was afraid. I am going to see them now, you know? Nothing will stop me.

  You mean why'd it take so long to get to Lambeau?

  It wasn't my intention. I was trying to figure out how to get into the stadium. I definitely didn't intend to wait until August, but after looking and considering, I figured the only way I could do it was if there were a lot of people around, if I could somehow blend into the scenery. There was a training camp scrimmage scheduled in the stadium on the eighth. I saw that on the website. That's where I was headed when the accident happened.

  Yes, I did have the note for Brett Favre Dad wanted me to deliver. It was written on the bottom of that last gooey letter Dad wrote.

  It burned in the crash.

  Dad told Brett Favre that the way he plays football is instructive. He said that you can't fear interceptions—you can't fear for your safety or you'll get hurt. You have to enjoy the ride, Brett! That kind of stuff. Pretty goofy.

  Yes, I miss her a lot. My sister! We've talked on the phone several times throughout the summer. Pani was very very very angry. Out of control. Slapped at Paulina, threatened to throw her out of the apartment. Not good.

  Oh, she calmed down eventually. I spoke with her on the phone in July. She understands English, you know.

  Yes, of course I miss Paulina. I already said that.

  What are you smiling about?

  What do you mean nothing?

  Well, anyway, that's pretty much the story. I've been in Wisconsin ever since May, waiting for football season. I was on my way to the stadium when it all exploded.

  Nope. I haven't written a journal entry or letter since Kristallnacht.

  Why are you smiling like that, Barry?

  Paulina?

  When? Into Green Bay? When?

  Did you arrange this?

  Charlie?

  Barry, when?

  You are—you really, really are—the most beautiful priest I have ever met. I know. I know. But you still are. You are, Barry.

  Section IV

  Green Bay

  Letter 58

  Letter left at front desk of St. Vincent's Care

  Center, Green Bay, WI

  August 22, 2005

  * * *

  Dear Father Barry,

  Watch out. I have a pen in my hand. I haven't written anything in nine months other than bowling scores and phone numbers, but now in my hand is a pen you left behind after we talked yesterday. The pen is advertising St. Vincent Catholic Church's summer schedule. “Our services are prayer conditioned.” Did someone from the diocese write that?

  Speaking of Saint Vincent, I read about him in Life of the Saints, a large beaten book that sits next to the television in the common room here. Saint Vincent de Paul, the book said, loved everyone: poor, rich, crazy, ignorant, sweet. Saint Vincent, as you probably know, cared for everyone and asked everyone to be humble and to take special care of the sick and the sad.

  All of Green Bay was like Saint Vincent last night.

  I felt very loved up there at the accident site, on the embankment, where thin threads of light dance off the burnt pavement when it gets dark. Charlie, my son, nuzzled his head into my chest as the sky darkened, and people surrounded me to thank me for my actions. I'm glad my right arm isn't in a cast, so I could hug Charlie to me.

  You asked me what changed between the time Charlie arrived on the bus from Minneapolis, so sullen and cold, and the time we drove out to the accident site, when he was better. I didn't want to answer in front of Charlie; I didn't want to embarrass him. You were right, something changed. But nothing is fixed.

  When me and Charlie were alone in my room, after Faye left to get Paulina, I stood up from the bed and said to him, “Oh man, there you are. You're here. It is so good to see you, Charlie.” I had tears in my eyes. My voice wavered.

  Charlie didn't respond. He looked out the window and his eyes began to tear up.

  I said, “You're mad. You should be angry. I'm so sorry.” I moved to hug him, and he shoved me back onto my bed.

  “You are a shit-bag dad,” he shouted. “I hate you.”

  I sat there on my bed for a moment, staring at his face that just said shit, his little-boy face, red and swollen with anger. He pushed me onto this bed, Father B., where for the last two weeks I've had to think so hard about what I've done, which hasn't been a great deal of fun. And I nodded, and I said, “Charlie, I have been a terrible, horrible shit-bag dad. I know.”

  “You're lucky I'm even here. Mom made me come.”

  “I'm so sorry. I'm so lucky you're here. I don't deserve such a good son.”

  “You're an asshole dad,” Charlie sobbed.

  “Asshole dad?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  This is strong language, Father Barry. It hurt. But I told him he was right, and that his language didn't go far enough. I told him we'd have to come up with much worse language to cover what kind of dad I've actually been because asshole and shit bag don't really do the matter justice. Charlie listened. I caught his attention. He's been working as an extra at the Guthrie Theater this year while I've been gone. Apparently he's learned new ways of expressing himself. He found more terrible language to describe me. He used lots of new words.

  It helped Charlie to express himself as truthfully as he could. By the time Faye returned from the airport with Paulina, Charlie was in the mood to hug everyone. He hugged Paulina, which made her cry, and Faye, who apparently cries more often than not. And I cried, too, because what am I going to do with all of this?

  This morning, after everything last night, I was really emotional, and I sat Charlie down in the chairs where you and I sit to talk. I looked into his eyes, and I asked him to forgive me.

  He smiled and said, “No.” Then he laughed. Then he went to the nurses' station to get a donut. He returned with an extra donut and gave it to me. Then we watched cartoons.

  Father Barry, I can't make up for what I've done. Still, Charlie loves me. He brought me a donut. I don't necessarily deserve to be forgiven, you know? But I think we're going to be okay. He wants to be my son. Would I have forgiven my father if given the chance? I don't know. I still love him. I think I understand him, and if I had a chance to talk to Dad, I would tell him that I understand. Maybe forgiveness is an empty word. Maybe acceptance is all there is. Chances are Dad would've screwed up again if he had lived. Would I have brought him a donut? Probably.

  What a strange night.

  From watching television, I didn't imagine the accident site correctly. Yes, there were hundreds of people, a mob. But driving up and seeing those people against the backdrop of a flat landscape that goes on forever was a little underwhelming. People are so small and the sky is enormous and the browns and grays of the earth and pavement stretch away forever. TV puts everything in a box, intensifies it all, but the land goes on and on.

  It wasn't until we moved into the crowd that I felt the intensity. We were guided in by the police and people pushed toward me to get a look. They smiled and waved and shook my hand. The sun began to set. So many in the crowd held candles, and the light pooled in the darkening air, which began to create a sense of boundary from the enormous sky. We arrived at the edge of the downed overpass and I could see people in their shorts and Packer T-shirts lined up down the highway and on the opposite embankment, so many with lit candles, like All Souls' Day in Poland, the whole scene bathed in candlelight. And the sun went down and the air rose.

  And I saw it. Heat from the departed sun rose off the pavement. I saw it. Quiet Green Bay whispered and prayed, and Charlie nuzzled into me, and Paulina stared down
at the highway, then turned toward me, her mouth open, because she couldn't understand what we were seeing: wisps of light, strings of lit dust lifting from the burnt pavement and twisting in the air, organizing and breaking, then reconfiguring, rising up. I don't know, Father Barry.

  You asked, after, what I made of it all, seeing the scene. I have a hard time believing I have anything to say about anything. I'm aware, after reading through the notebooks with you, that I am a huge fool. But before the letters, Father, I never said anything to anybody. Even if I never sent a single one of those letters and never intended to send them and even if I'm crazy, when I began to write them, I was trying to communicate something, wasn't I?

  Dad was trying, too, it seems.

  Okay. Listen. I think I've seen it before. I think the light is from Dublin and Julia, and from Paris in the Seine, and it was in Antwerp in the park, and I saw candlelight mix with that kind of light in the Polish cemetery. It might be the light my dad saw the day he and his Catholic brothers attacked the train and released a hundred and fifty people who were bound for Auschwitz. If I've seen it, millions of people have seen it in a million different ways, and I don't know what it is. It might be nothing at all or it might be something. I think it's something.

  “What do you make of all this?” you asked. I couldn't answer and maybe I shouldn't, but I'm going to.

  Father Barry, I'm sorry. I didn't see the Virgin Mary down there where the bus crashed and the overpass collapsed. But I understand why you might see her, why Catholics see her. The light is amazing. And there is this astonishing thing that happened. If an astonishing thing is a miracle, that was my miracle . . . and the Virgin Mary is associated with miracles. Maybe that light is her and I simply don't have the background to recognize her. Maybe Mary showed up to mark the spot. But I didn't see her.

  I saw dust that gathered light and rose on the air from the burnt pavement, dust that rose and danced.

  What do I make of all this? My first inclination is to shrug and to believe the guy on CNN who said, “It's marvelous to see, but come on. The light is caused by the chemicals the fire department used to douse the fire. The foam left a dust, and the dust rises on heat from the pavement, and it's being illuminated by man-made sources of light.” Yes. Sounds right. You know, Dad's ashes are also mixed up with that foam dust. Maybe his earthly remains are incandescent. He was quite a guy.

  But my inclinations don't stop with that first one. My second inclination is to think of Van Gogh's painting Starry Night. My third inclination is to think of Julia Hilfgott in a bubble of light by an Irish cemetery. My fourth inclination is to see my sister illuminated as a little girl in my dreams, saving me. My fifth inclination is to remember. I remember now, Father Barry. I remember hitting the tour bus after it veered and crashed into the overpass in front of me. I remember exploding into the side of the bus. I remember opening my eyes, the airbag deflating, dust from my father's bird vase thick in the air. I remember thinking, “What just happened?” I remember kicking the door out, sliding out of the luggage hold of the bus, running away then stopping, hearing the roar of fires and screams behind me. I remember turning back to the bus, thinking, “This is a disaster.” And I remember charging into the fires to free the people on the bus, seeing slabs of concrete from the overpass that had buckled when the bus hit its support blocking the door to the bus, screams from the bus and faces pressed against glass. I remember crying to them, “I can't get to you.” I remember climbing the remains of the overpass and finding a pick-up truck crashed and empty on it (the driver had apparently already run). I remember rolling the pick-up truck off to the right, rolling it over the edge of the buckled lane where it dropped ten feet onto its side (I hoped getting the truck off the overpass would somehow help me move the slabs that blocked the bus door, which was wishful thinking, except . . .). When the truck hit the pavement, it exploded. The explosion shot me into the air, and for a moment I had this slow, clear view of Lambeau Field and I knew I had to die, knew it was time, and I laughed because I thought, “Oh, now that I don't want to die, this is what I get?” And then I was amazed because I knew I wanted to live. I fell to the earth screaming. Rebar saved me. I fell onto hot bands of metal that bent with my weight, slowed me. For a moment I hung there, yards from the ground, my back searing, and I cried out in pain, but mostly in celebration. I swore with words Charlie hasn't even dreamed of. I broke my arm as I twisted out of the metal and I cried, “Fuck you, arm!” And I looked up and saw the bus door. The exploding pick-up truck had moved the bus, cleared most of the cement in front of its door. I ran to the door, shoved and kicked the remaining blocks of concrete, and opened the door, and people tumbled down the stairs and out, shoving into me, screaming. I climbed into the bus, crawled along the floor, pulled people out from under crumpled seats with my good arm. People dragged their children and parents out around me. The machine roar of the fire swallowed their cries. Fire climbed the windows. Heavy smoke billowed and exploded, carrying burning fabric. “I'm not going to die,” I shouted at people who escaped. Finally, I pulled a girl who seemed dead out from under a seat. I pinched her to me, dragged her toward the door, past the bus driver, his mouth open, dead eyes open—a heart attack, I heard, that caused the whole accident in the first place. I said sorry. And then I dragged this girl down the stairs, tripping on her dead legs, out of the bus. People were screaming at me as we emerged from the smoke, heading toward the cars and the crowd, away from the bus.

  I think the bus exploded then. I remember a deafening sound and nothing else until your blurry face, backlit from a window, Father Barry. We were in the hospital. You bent over me. You said, “Mr. Rimberg. The Lord has blessed you.” You made me laugh.

  Later I remember waking and wondering where I'd put my father's ashes. I couldn't remember, but knew my loss had something to do with the cards and phone calls from families and the visit from the family of some girl who was in stable condition somewhere else in the hospital. And you were in my room wanting to talk, and I felt broken everywhere, and groggy, and confused. I was most definitely alive, even though I had the sense I shouldn't be so lucky.

  And what did we talk about when we sat together? You had somehow gotten your hands on my notebooks. We talked about this exhausting, ridiculous year I've had, this year spawned from my utter inability to live decently.

  There are things I want to say. They grew during the time we've been together. I wasn't sure I wanted to say these things, Father Barry. I wasn't sure of them. But having Charlie here and Paulina, having seen what I saw last night—I have to give voice to these things.

  I am a complete idiot, a narcissist, a navel gazer, and a philanderer. I am humbled and culpable. But I am happy I was suicidal. I am delighted I saw ghosts. I believe my dad talked to me after he died. I saw my little sister in my dreams before I knew she existed. I saved a busload of goddamn Packer fans from death. I am a father. This is all real and right and I am not ashamed. Life is a complete disaster. It is horrible and ridiculous. I am so lucky to have this chance. Most people aren't so lucky. They should pay better attention.

  That's what I have to say.

  Now I'm going to pull Charlie from watching TV in the common room. We're going to meet Faye and Paulina at the Perkins across the parking lot for some breakfast (even though my smarty-pants son says he doesn't want to eat at a chain restaurant). I will buy breakfast for all of them, anything they want, because I love these people.

  Later today, Faye is driving us to Minneapolis so Paulina can meet my daughters. I'm going to hug them and take all the abuse and anger they've got, because I deserve it. And then I'm going to tell them some amazing stories. And then what? I'm going to love my kids and they're going to know it. I'll go from there.

  Sound like a plan? I hope so, because that's all I got.

  Thank you so much for what you've done, Father Barry. Really. Thank you.

  T.

  Acknowledgments

  * * *

  First, Linds
ey Moore is a great editor. Lindsey is perceptive and creative and I can't thank her enough for taking a chance on this book. Thank you to my great agent, Jim McCarthy, who is calm when I am not. My Lit6 pals? Steph Ash, Brady Bergeson, and Sam Osterhout? I owe you so much. In fact, thank you to the whole EARS crew: Dave Salmela, Jenny Adams, Kurt Froehlich, Paul D. Dickenson, Mike Brady, Peter Robelia, Tony Mogelson, Kevin Riach, and Quillan Roe. To the web team: Andy Sturdevant and Karen Kopacz. Thank you to my Hamline University peers who had an impact on this book: Shannon Schenck, Susan Montag, Scott Wisgerhof, Dave Oppegaard, Sandy Beach, and Alison Morse (more great friends here than I can mention). Thank you to Hamline teachers: Deborah Keenan, Mary Rockcastle, and, especially, Sheila O'Connor. I am forever indebted to the Hamline program. I would be remiss if I didn't thank Jen and Colin Plese, Jason Jones, Duane McLaughlin, and Brad Thayer, all of whom are brilliant and all of whom retarded my ability to function normally at exactly the right moment. Thank you to URPL stars Branden Born and Jerry Kaufman. And, of course, to Marty McGinley, Todd Louthain, Chris Bierbrauer, and the whole Platteville crew. Thanks to George Jonas and Mary Healy Jonas. Thanks to Jason Oates. Thanks to my incredible, supportive, and talented family (so much to Vovo, Michael Zahler, Jonathan Herbach, Yol and Steve, Marisa, and Grandma Elinor). Thanks to Amy Naughton. And, finally, thank you to my beautiful kids, Leo and Mira, who are seemingly not nonplussed at having a slightly weird dad. I love you so much.

  Copyright © 2008 by Geoff Herbach