Almost Heaven

by Chris Fabry

  “I can take a pay cut,” I said.

  He winced. “It’s not just the pay issue. It’s the whole package. You understand.”

  “No, I don’t understand. I haven’t been late to work; I haven’t shirked my duties. Can you tell me the last time the station was off the air because of equipment problems? The only downtime we’ve had is the lightning strike at—”

  He put up a hand. “I’m not saying you’ve been negligent. This is a financial decision pure and simple.”

  “Karl, you have to have an engineer. You said you were going to hire another one. There’s nobody on the planet who’s going to work for less than I do.”

  “We’re looking at somebody who could come in part-time, maybe. Might not pay benefits. The benefits are killing us.”

  “Then let me do that,” I said. “I’ll cut back to three days. Even two, if you want.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Now, I’d be glad to give you a recommendation, a reference as you job hunt. You might make money fixing TVs and such. You can fix just about anything. But I think we need to move in another direction. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Stop saying I’ll understand.”

  “I’m sorry, Billy.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “I truly am.”

  He stood up and reached a hand toward me.

  “Is this about your brother? Is Jimmy the one you’re going to hire?”

  He looked down at his desk and took back his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  I took my jacket and stood. When I turned to leave, something struck me. With my hand on the doorknob, I looked back at him. “The old Gates board in the production room. It’s been unhooked for a couple of years. Would you consider selling that to me?”

  He made a face and laughed. “That thing has been around here longer than I have. What do you want with it?”

  “Would you sell it?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Well, we have to give you two weeks’ severance, but if you want it, I think we can work something out. Clear out your desk and I’ll have Kathy put it down in writing. Don’t want you suing us or anything.”

  I didn’t smile.

  “Oh, go on and take it with you today if you’d like.”

  I nodded. “I do thank you for giving me a chance, Karl. You didn’t have to but you did.”

  “It’s been a pleasure having you with us, Billy. I wish you well. Let me know what works out for you.”

  I closed the door and collected my things. It didn’t take long. I had one of the announcers help me carry the heavy mixing board to my truck and load it in the back. I gave the key to the building back to Kathy, who had tears in her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry about all this, Billy. I don’t know what’s going on around here these days.”

  “I’ll be okay. I thank you for your kindness.”

  It felt like I was losing part of my life and that the long march on my personal Bataan was continuing. Looking back, I was just starting on a new adventure that I couldn’t see. Jesus said in the Bible that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it stays a single seed. But if it dies, it can produce a bunch of seeds. That means a lot more wheat can only come from a dead kernel. I think that’s what happened.

  12

  A man with a singular vision is difficult to find. One who seeks with a whole heart to give his whole self to God, no matter the cost, no matter the pain, is a human anomaly. I’ve heard of such people, and those men and women have changed the world, not because of their great strength and abilities, but because of the relinquishing of their own desires.

  If there is a wholly unreserved man on earth, I have not seen him. But I have come very close in Billy Allman. For when the dream of his life and the love of a woman and all that he had planned failed, as simple and unsatisfying as that would have seemed to someone who believed happiness was contingent on finding “the good life,” Billy was set free. He was released to run in the playground of God’s will. Of course he did not immediately do this. He squandered much time and zeal by the swing sets before he could even begin to understand the scope of his opportunities.

  Humanity is not easy for a being like me to understand. In our battles, there is no acquiescence to defeat. But on that time-bound planet, the goal for the human believer is not found in every victorious triumph, but in the elusive relationship with the Father that then leads to ultimate victory.

  It is becoming much clearer that there is a veil of understanding on both sides of the eternal chasm. They do not understand how things in the heavenlies are ordered because they have no ability to see into our world. And there is an equally opaque veil for those of us who look on from this side of heaven’s wonders. We cannot understand the ways of the heart. We cannot fully experience the strength of a loving Father carrying one through desperate times. For the human followers, it is in losing that they finally discover. It is in failing that they see. It is in the abandonment of the trail they believed would lead them to lasting joy that they set out on a new path. It is much narrower and overgrown, but in the journey through this wilderness of the soul, they discover more about themselves and Him than if every prayer of their wayward hearts had been answered in the affirmative.

  I say that Billy was released by this event, the losing of what he deemed his true love, and by other events that were soon to come. But release is always a process with humans. Though he began to run and plan and dream in the space given him, though his spirit became more free in the years that followed, it seemed he was hobbled, saddled with something from the past that I had not observed. This came in flashes, outbursts of anger, destructive behavior. Billy did not eat well. He was not a drunkard, but what he chose to consume daily made me think he was punishing himself. Anything from the past could be blamed—his father, his mother’s death, the loss of his “love,” or something else entirely, but I could never discover in any of his correspondence or discussions with his few friends the specific reason.

  There was a period of time when I had been called away, the time at the latter end of his high school years that prevented me from being in his presence, but I had been through the general ebb and flow of his life. As Billy began his second “career,” as he would call it, I set myself on a path of discovery to find that piece of the puzzle. If I had failed in some way to protect him, I wanted to know. And though I feared the discovery, I feared even more the source where that information would come.

  13

  There was a man of God I listened to every day on the radio, and after I lost my job, I got to hear him twice each day. His voice was like a bullhorn to my soul because even when he just read the Bible, it felt like my heart stirred. And when he told stories and sprinkled in his understanding and wisdom, it was like he had a pipeline right into heaven. I named my dog Rogers because of him.

  In my early years in Dogwood, I had not traveled farther than the state line, with the exception of a few trips across the Ohio River to visit my mother’s relatives, and once to Kentucky. With all the pomp and promises of the Gospel Bluegrass Boys, we wound up visiting two other states, but just making short jaunts, so I did not consider myself a world traveler. It’s not that I didn’t want to go places. If I could have driven to Memphis and visited that pastor’s church, I would have done it in a minute, but traveling very far from home caused problems.

  A year or two after my mama died, I heard this pastor was speaking at a church in Charleston on a Saturday night, and I drove up there to hear him and talk with him. I put on my best clothes, which wasn’t saying much, and walked into that big auditorium with all those seats and people wearing ties and suit coats. I felt pretty small. The service was thrilling, but something happened afterward and I got turned around in the lobby trying to find this pastor. He left out a side door and I followed but got into some hallway with a lot of plants and got confused. A man spoke harshly to me and said I couldn’t be back there, and I went the other way and wound up in a sea of pe
ople.

  One usher found me wandering near the sanctuary and must have thought I was out of my gourd. When he found out I had the sugar diabetes, he took me back through those doors and sat me in an office. There was this little refrigerator under a desk and he got me a sandwich and a little box of juice. He said he could tell from my eyes that something was wrong. I checked my levels and they were dangerously low, so I had a couple more of those juice boxes.

  “You feeling better?” the man asked.

  I said yes and thanked him, my head clearing, and told him the real reason I had come.

  The man winced. “That may be a little tough. He’s gone.”

  “Already?”

  “He and his wife went directly from here to a hotel. They fly out early in the morning from Yeager. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No, I appreciate it. I feel like the Lord wants me to talk with him.”

  The man nodded. “I understand.”

  “Can you tell me which hotel he’s in?”

  “I don’t think I should. I want to help. But the staff would probably be upset I even told you—”

  “It’s all right,” I interrupted. “I don’t want you to do something you don’t feel is right. He deserves his privacy.”

  “Believe me, I would if I could. And I’d be glad to help you myself.”

  I got up and the room spun, so I sat down again and caught my breath. Then a thought occurred to me. “You don’t suppose you could answer me a different question, could you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, if I was from out of town, which I am, and if I wanted to get to the airport early in the morning, do you have a recommendation for a hotel in the area?”

  He smiled at me like I was a dog that had just fetched the morning paper without getting any slobber on it. He opened a desk drawer and got out a pad of paper and wrote something on it. “Turn right out of the parking lot and at the first light turn left. It’s down on your right. The address is right here.”

  I thanked him and my eyes stung. “I could have just asked God to direct me, I guess, but who knows where I would have ended up. Probably in the Kanawha River.”

  “We wouldn’t want that,” the man said. “Tell me your name.”

  I told him.

  He handed me a card with his name on it. It read, Charles Broughton. He was some kind of salesman and it was real professional-looking. “If you ever need anything else, Billy, I want you to call me.”

  I felt a bit of hope as I drove to the hotel. It was a fancy place with lots of leather furniture in the lobby. I felt just as out of place there as I had at the church, but after a few minutes I used a phone to dial the operator and asked for his room. The fellow hesitated, then said he would put me through.

  A woman answered and I asked to talk to her husband. She was real nice and asked me to hold on. My hands started sweating and I had to wipe them off on my shirt.

  “This is Adrian,” he said. That voice. Unmistakable. Just like I had heard on the radio. Piercing and clear. “Hello? Is there anybody there?”

  I finally got up the gumption to speak. “Hello, sir, uh . . . I was wondering . . . I was at your meeting tonight and . . . I don’t want to bother you . . .”

  “Who is this?”

  “My name is Billy Allman, sir. You don’t know me.”

  “Well, Billy Allman, go ahead and ask whatever you want; you’re not bothering me.”

  I took a breath. “Well, is there a way you would sit and talk with me for a few minutes about something?”

  “About what? the weather? theology?”

  “I’m born again, Dr. Rogers. Washed in the blood. But I have a big decision to make. And I feel like the Lord wants me to get your opinion. I’m not a pastor or a teacher or anything. It’s just that he’s put something on my heart and I can’t seem to get shed of it.”

  It sounded like he put his hand over the phone and said something to his wife. When he came back on, he said, “Where are you?”

  “In the lobby of your hotel.”

  He chuckled. “Well, you made it easy on me, didn’t you. I’ll be down in ten minutes. Find us someplace quiet where people won’t disturb us.”

  “I’ll do that. And thank you, sir. Thank you.”

  The hotel had a breakfast area that went all the way around the corner and I set up shop there. I was like a kid waiting for Christmas. Of course, I had just seen him at the service, and I’d seen his picture a few times before that, but I swear I would’ve known him just by the way he walked. It was like he had authority that other people didn’t. He scanned the lobby and moved toward me when I waved. He stuck out his hand and shook firmly.

  “Billy, it’s nice to meet you. Where should we sit?”

  I showed him around the corner to the table. I couldn’t do much but stare. “I can’t believe I’m actually talking with you. I’ve listened a long time.”

  “I appreciate that. Let’s get to it then.”

  I had made notes on a couple of three-by-five cards that covered the front and back. When I looked at them, he motioned for me to put them down. “Just share from your heart, Billy.”

  I looked him full in the face. “Pastor, I feel like God has given me an idea to help people in my Jerusalem. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but it is kind of risky and I don’t know whether to go through with it.”

  “What’s the idea?”

  “A radio station. I’ve gone through the application process with the FCC, and I have a bead on the rest of the equipment, but there are fees to pay and an antenna and tower to buy, and all of that is pretty expensive.”

  “What do you want to do with the station?”

  “Run some programs like yours, but mostly play bluegrass music that speaks to people around here. Gospel-oriented music that gets them thinking about things above.”

  He nodded. “Do you have experience in radio?”

  “I’ve been doing it all my life. I’m more into the technical side than the microphone side, but I can do both.”

  “Well, I certainly think that’s a worthy dream. One question I always ask is, are other people doing the same thing you plan on doing?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. There’s a bluegrass station in Huntington and one in Charleston, but the signal is spotty in our hollow down in Dogwood. Plus, I want to do some things they don’t do.”

  There was a napkin on the table and he moved it around and stared at me. “What do the people who know you best think about this idea? Are you involved in a church?”

  “I am now. For a long time I didn’t go because of my mother and her sickness before she passed. There was a falling-out of sorts, too. Your program fed me through that time.”

  “Well, you need to have people around you praying for this radio station. And you’ll probably need some people who will support you. How much do you need to get this off the ground?”

  I told him.

  “Do you have any debt?”

  “Just my house and the land behind it, but I’ve been paying on that a few years.”

  The man closed his eyes and brought a verse from memory. He always quoted in King James. “‘A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.’”

  “Proverbs 16:9,” I said.

  His eyes opened wide. “Billy, I meet a lot of people with a lot of dreams. And most of them are just things they want. They want a bigger house or a better wife or a wider ministry, tada, tada, tada. But I can tell you love the Lord with all your heart.”

  Tears came to my eyes. “I do.”

  “And you want to please him with your whole heart.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have a wife?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Any family?”

  “My mother was the last in her family and my daddy died years ago.”

  “Well, let me ask you this and I want you to answer honestly. Billy, do you believe God loves you? that he wants the very best for
your life?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “And do you believe this idea you’ve had for some time has been given by him and he’s put you in a place to see it come true, with his help?”

  I nodded. “I don’t know how I’m going to raise the money or get the rest of the equipment, but yes, this is all about him.”

  “All right. Then if he has truly planted this vision in your heart and has given you the inclination and the ability to run it, and if he provides the resources to accomplish it, I don’t see why you shouldn’t put your whole heart into it.”

  I put my head down on the table and he put his hand on my shoulder. It took me a minute to look back up at him.

  He locked eyes with me and raised a finger. “This is what I’ll say to you. Go back to your church and the pastor and the leaders there. Humble yourself before that fellowship. Clear up anything that’s between you, okay? Now, if they’re not holding God’s Word as a standard, you go someplace else.”

  “That’s not the case. They preach the Word.”

  “All right, then the problem was probably some personality difference or communication?”

  “They invited some people to sing there that I didn’t think was a good idea.”

  “Well, you go clear that up and don’t go at this alone. You need people to stand with you. You need people to pray. There might be people there who would become partners in the work.”

  “I never thought of it that way, but you’re right. I’m almost cheating them out of the blessing.”

  “Exactly. Plan it well, pray it through, follow the Lord’s leading, and in time, he will direct your path and set you on a firm foundation.”

  I couldn’t help the joy that flooded my soul. It felt like fresh rain on a dry and thirsty land. “This is what I needed.”

  “Now don’t go on my word and recommendation. You have to have the faith it takes to believe what God has called you to do. That’s not going to come from something an old preacher like me can say.”