by T. K. Chapin
I shook my head, “This isn’t my son; he’s my nephew.”
“Oh, okay. You and your nephew should come,” Kristen said.
“What time is that at? What’s it involve exactly?” I asked.
“It’s at four. There will be a barbeque, football and lots of God’s people just hanging out and fellowshipping.”
“Football?” I asked, with a raised brow. “That sounds like it could be fun.”
She smiled. “I think it’s for the youth only…”
“Oh… yeah… right.” I looked over at Christopher for his opinion on the matter. He nodded over at me with a smile. Looking back at Kristen, I said, “Sounds good… we’ll be there.”
“Great,” she replied. Her phone began ringing and she pulled it out of her pocket. “That’s our friends we are meeting for lunch. It was nice meeting you,” she said, putting her hand over Blake’s shoulder to usher him away.
“Nice meeting you too,” I said, shooting her a quick wave as I watched her walk down the sidewalk. Turning my attention back to Christopher, I said, “Power is back on. Want to go back home and get some gaming in?”
He shook his head. “I’m having fun out here. Let’s go get some food and come back and play some more?”
I nodded as a grin broke out on my face. “Sounds good, bud.”
We walked to the parking lot and loaded our equipment into the back seat. Glancing over at Christopher in the passenger seat as I started the car, I thought again about him just being a kid. I said, “If you ever need someone to hang out with or talk to, you can call me.”
“Okay,” he said with zero emotion. I glanced over once more to catch a smile from the corner of his lip. I knew right at that moment, that I had made a connection with him. After lunch, we came back to the baseball field and played until nightfall. It was the first of many memorable moments with Christopher.
There were no cell phones, electricity, or other outside influences. It was nothing like what Christopher and I were accustomed to in a world full of distractions. With only God’s warmth from the sun, the dirt beneath our shoes, and each other, it was an unforgettable treasure in the sands of time.
CHAPTER 5
Smells of summertime filled the air as I got out of my car the next day at Valley Baptist. I looked over the top of my car over at Christopher. I saw him smile as he took a deep breath, inhaling the whiff of barbecuing in the distance.
“Smells good, doesn’t it?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’m sick of frozen pizzas…” he paused for a moment. “No offense.”
I shook my head as I shut the car door. “None taken. I don’t care for my cooking abilities, or lack thereof. Nobody down at the fire station does either…” I laughed as I came around to the front of the car.
“Are my eyes deceiving me?” a man from across the parking lot asked as he hurried across the pavement.
Christopher and I stopped and looked over at him. “Excuse me?” I asked, confused.
“Is that a ‘79 Shelby?” the man asked as he arrived next to us.
Glancing over my shoulder at my car, I nodded. Looking back at the stranger, I smiled and pushed up my shades to sit on top of my head. “Sure is… You into cars?” I asked.
Nodding, he replied, “I have a ‘69 Charger I’ve been working on forever. Just sits in my garage collecting dust for the most part, unfortunately.” Walking up and alongside my car, he continued, “This car is the exact model my father had when I was growing up…”
“It’s a nice car.”
He seemed to be taken back for a moment with his thoughts and then suddenly he shook it off and extended a hand to me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Tyson, Tyson Werstley,” he said.
I shook his hand, “Kane McCormick, and this here is my nephew Christopher.”
He shook Christopher’s hand and said, “I have a boy about your age. He’s with some of the youth group setting up for a LAN party this evening. You into video games?”
Christopher nodded. “Yeah, video games are cool. I’ve been to a couple of LAN parties, that’s awesome that they are doing one.”
“Yeah,” Tyson replied, glancing at his watch. “They should be here soon. Are you guys new here?” Tyson asked as we began walking towards the side of the church.
I shook my head. “We don’t attend here, just got an invite from Kristen.”
“Oh, you know Kristen?” he asked, surprise evident on his face.
“Yeah, kinda… We were playing baseball with her son Blake,” I replied.
Tyson nodded as he said, “Blake and my boy Tyler play together all the time. They’re together right now at the LAN thing.”
“Oh,” I replied.
We came around to the backside of the church and found a rather large crowd of people. Rows of picnic tables were full of attendees. Several barbeques were off to one side. As Tyson split off from us and vanished into the sea of people, we walked by the grills. One man cooking looked over his shoulder and smiled as he nodded to us.
“These people seem pretty nice,” I said.
He replied, “Yeah. Everyone is smiling… What are they so happy about?”
I shrugged. “Kind of always like this at churches.”
The smells were intoxicating and reminded me of how much I missed Gus’ cooking at the firehouse. He had left the fire station a few months back after getting a cooking gig in Seattle for a fancy restaurant.
Christopher leaned over to my ear as we neared a large pine tree and asked, “When do you think we’ll eat?”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the time. “Can’t be long now… It’s already a little after four o’clock.”
He nodded and sighed. Stopping at a tree that towered over the building, we sat down at the base. I looked across the crowd as they all were deep in conversation and laughter. The atmosphere that these people created was warm and inviting. One lady appeared to be going from table to table organizing the salads and chips. Spotting Christopher and me, she darted over to us.
“Welcome,” she said with a genuine smile on her face. “I’m Leanne Barnes. I saw you two sitting over here. Are you new?”
“We were invited by Kristen,” I replied.
“Oh, okay. She’s a nice gal. What are your names?” Leanne asked.
“I’m Kane, and this here is Christopher.”
“Well, It’s nice to meet both of you, and I’m happy you came. We’re fixing to eat here in a few minutes, so hopefully you two brought your appetites!”
“We sure did!” Christopher said, smiling.
“Good,” she replied.
Someone called to her from one of the picnic tables in the crowd. “I’d better get going, but I hope to see you around at church sometime!” she said as she jogged back to her post at the tables.
I nodded to her and watched as she hurried into the crowd. Christopher asked, “You think she gets paid well to help out?”
I shook my head. “Nobody really gets paid at most churches outside of the pastor.”
Christopher’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Why on earth do they do it?”
“They want to serve God, Christopher.”
He didn’t have a response and just nodded as he looked out into the football field that sat over in the distance.
“Hey, what’s a LAN party?” I asked.
He laughed, looking back over at me. “Are you serious?”
I nodded, embarrassed by his shocked response. “Never heard of it before.”
He adjusted in his seat to explain. “Basically, it’s a bunch of gaming systems hooked up together so you can play with each other. It’s really fun. I’ve been to a few of them.”
“Why don’t you go tonight with Blake and the others?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not really something you invite yourself to.”
“How come?”
He shrugged. “Just not how it works.”
“From the sounds of it, it’d
be more fun the more people you have at one. Right?”
“It is more fun with more people, but that doesn’t mean you want someone there that just invited himself. It’d be awkward.”
“McCormick!” a man’s familiar voice from the crowd shouted.
I shot a quick look over the crowd and spotted Cole standing up from a picnic table. He was there with Megan and their kids. I jumped to my feet and wiped the dirt from my hands onto my jeans as he came over to me.
“Whatcha doing here?” he asked, shaking my hand and patting me on the shoulder.
“Got an invite from a kid and his mother at the park yesterday,” I replied. “What about you? I thought you went to Pines Baptist.”
“We do go to Pines, but we are enrolling Justin into the pre-school here this coming school year. They invited us to come to the barbeque to get acquainted with some of the teachers and staff at the church.” Cole looked past me and at Christopher. “Hi, Christopher.”
“Hey, Mr. Taylor,” he replied.
Cole smiled and directed his attention back to me. “So you guys went to a park yesterday?”
“Yeah, we did. Christopher is staying with me while Ems visits our mom. We ended up at the park because we lost power.”
“Oh jeez! I heard about that outage on the news. It was pretty widespread. Thankfully, we live outside of the affected area,” Cole replied. “So what were you doing in the park?”
“Playing baseball,” I replied.
“Awesome. And that reminds me. The guys at the station want to get another game going in a week, if you are interested?”
“I’d love to play again. I found that bucket of balls in my garage, by the way,” I replied.
“So they were there? Not stolen from the kids you thought were playing in your garage?” Cole asked.
“Yeah, they were there. He just didn’t look behind a stack of newspapers,” Christopher laughed.
Cole laughed and covered his mouth to try to hide it.
“Shut it,” I replied, smiling. “Heard anything on my suspension?”
Cole stopped laughing and shook his head. “Jensen is pretty upset about it all. I’m trying to convince him to overlook the fight and stress the fact you were defending Gomer.”
I nodded.
“You should try to talk to Foster about it… maybe apologize about his girlfriend and the whole Christmas party fiasco?”
My jaw clenched at the suggestion and Cole placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Put that pride aside. Your job is on the line,” Cole said.
I nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
“How’s your mom doing?” Cole asked.
I shrugged. “She’s okay. Went and saw her like you suggested.”
“Hey,” Kristen said, interrupting us as she came around the side of the tree.
I turned and said, “Hey, Kristen.”
She smiled as she came over to me. Just then, Megan called out for Cole to come back over to the picnic table to help with the boys.
“You know that man?” Kristen asked as Cole headed back to Megan.
“He’s like a brother to me. Why?” I asked.
“That man saved my sister’s life last year. She was stuck in a car and he helped her. After the accident, she found his picture in the newspaper preceding the funeral of the captain.”
I nodded as I tried to recall car wrecks from the last year. “I have been on Cole’s shift for a long time. What’s her name?”
“Oh really? You’re a firefighter too?” she asked.
“Yes, Ma’am,” I replied with a grin.
“Maybe you were there with him that day? Her name is Monica,” Kristen replied.
“Oh yeah…” I replied, recalling the accident down on Division street. “Did she make a full recovery? I remember we had to use the Jaws of Life on that car of hers.”
“She did, yes. The car, not so much…”
I laughed. “Yeah, the Jaws of Life has a way of doing that.”
Interrupting our conversation, a man got up near the front of the crowd. “I’m Pastor Tom, and I’d like to welcome you out today. Hope you all are enjoying the beautiful weather.” He paused waiting for the conversations to die down across the crowd. Kristen and I sat down by the tree. “We will be having a youth group football game of two hand touch after the barbeque, so all the youth just head over to the field after you finish up with your food. Let’s bless the food and dig in!”
Everybody bowed their heads as a warm summer breeze blew in from the north and pushed a few strands of Kristen’s blonde curly hair into my face. She grabbed the loose hair quickly and apologized in a whisper as she got it under control. But it was too late. Those strands carried a smell so wonderful, it’d made me forget about the world around me. I tried to focus on the pastor’s prayer as he said it, but I kept thinking about Kristen. Why? I wondered. A smell? It didn’t make any sense to me, but I could not get her off my mind through the entire prayer and then when everyone began to get food. We both stayed back at the tree and waited for the line to die down.
“Krissy,” Tyson said upon approaching us with a plate of food. He handed her the plate. “I got those little tomatoes you like along with some fruit and cheese.”
“Thank you, Tyson. That was sweet of you,” she replied with a smile, taking the plate from his hands.
“I’m going to go get in line,” I said, standing up. “Tyson,” I said, greeting him with a nod as I walked past him and headed over to the tables that held the food.
Grabbing a paper plate and napkin from the table, I kept my eyes locked on Tyson and Kristen. Did they have something going on? I wondered. Then, I shook off the thought. It wasn’t my business. I just played baseball with her son and smelled her hair. I wasn’t in a position to question her relationship status.
“Burger or dog?” a woman with gloves asked with a friendly smile.
“Burger,” I replied, looking past her at Tyson and Kristen again. I saw Tyson sit down next to her and I sighed.
“You okay, Sir?” the lady asked as she put the burger onto a bun and onto my plate.
I looked at her with a slight embarrassment that she noticed my sigh. Nodding, I replied, “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Continuing down the table, I filled my plate with chips, veggies and fruit. There wasn’t much room for anything else. As I glanced over at the tree again, I noticed Tyson and Kristen were no longer there. Where’d they go? I wondered, looking over my shoulder across the crowd. I looked over to the football field and just saw a couple of footballs sitting on the sidelines. No Kristen, no Tyson. They weren’t anywhere in sight. They definitely have something going on, I thought to myself as I went over to the large trough of ice water. Reaching down, I grabbed a water bottle from beneath the surface. Shaking the excess water off of the bottle, I ventured back over to the tree with my plate of food.
After a few minutes, Kristen returned to the tree. Looking up at her, unable to say anything with a bite of burger in my mouth, I scooted over to make room for her. She had brought another plate of food over.
“Sorry about that,” she said as she set her water down and began to eat her fruit salad.
I shook my head as I finished chewing. “It’s no problem.”
“Tyson just needed some help finding the footballs for the game.”
I laughed as I took a bite of my watermelon.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I replied.
“Seriously, what?” she pressed.
“You two obviously have something going on… you don’t need to hide it with some fake story to me.”
She set her fork down on her plate and raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? There is nothing going on between Tyson and myself. I told you what happened because I didn’t want you to think anything was going on there.”
“Really? The footballs are already over there on the field.”
She glanced over at the field and shook her head as she scoffed. “I guess th
at explains why we didn’t find any… Ugh.”
“What?”
“Tyson.”
“What about him?”
“I think he just pulled me away to screw with your head… He’s had a thing for me for quite some time now…”
“Why would you go with him if that’s the case?” I asked.
She took another bite of her fruit salad and nodded, waiting to finish the bite before speaking. “I can’t help but think the best of people… I honestly didn’t think he had ill intentions until now.”
“I see,” I replied. I grabbed a potato chip from my plate and popped it into my mouth as I spotted Tyson talking to a couple of people by the dessert table. He made eye contact with me and gave me a nod before returning to his conversation. Did the guy really feel that threatened by me? I wondered.
Kristen’s phone rang. Putting her plate down, she checked the caller ID. “Ugh… its work.” She stood up and walked around the pine tree and out of sight.
“Hey, Uncle Kane,” Christopher said, coming over to me.
“Yeah?” I replied, finishing the last chip on my plate.
“Blake and the other guys are heading over to the LAN party after the football game… and they wanted to see if I could go and stay the night!”
I smiled up at him and handed him my plate. “Sure! Would you go toss that in the trash?”
“Okay, awesome!” Christopher replied, taking the plate.
“Wait… what time are you going to be back at my place tomorrow? Or do you need a ride?”
Christopher looked over at Blake and the other kids with him.
One kid stepped forward and said, “I’m sure my dad can drive him to your place. Like around lunch time or something?”
I nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“Sweet. Thanks, Uncle Kane,” Christopher said as Kristen came back around the tree. Christopher and the other boys headed towards the football field.
“Man, don’t you ever wish you could go live off the land in a hut somewhere off the grid?” Kristen asked as she sat back down next to her plate of fruit salad.
I laughed. “Off the grid? I like being on the grid… I’d go nuts without a sense of connection to everybody else.”
She nodded. “That’s true… and I’d hate not having any of the luxuries we have in the city.”