This is a true story. I know it’s true because it happened to me, and it’s something I will never forget. The visions, and the senses, and the feelings are mine. They snuck into me long ago (or maybe they were already there), and they have never left. The sleek, pearl-gray shimmer of a casket. The rough, blackened bark of a lonely tree in Virginia. The rumpled face of a kindly old man who eventually saved my life. The cool rain falling under moonlight. They are all there. And I will never let them go.
Forty-two years ago, my father died. I was about ten, I guess – just a kid. I don’t quite remember what they said made his heart fail – some long, impersonal medical term – but I believed for years that it was me. My mother had left us a few years before, and he was just never the same after that.
He used to drive me up to Hillview Park, where there was a dusty little ball field. It smelled sweetly of spring, but the familiar summer sun beamed down over it in thick green and golden hue. I’d stand in the batter’s box with my shiny Louisville Slugger, while my dad pitched, always right down the middle. I’d square up and sneer, and pound that ball right into left-center; and then I’d run those bases as fast as I could. I know I must have run them a thousand times, and my dad never caught me…but somehow, I don’t think he minded much. As the sun started to wane and the shade from the immense sycamore trees crept up along the backstop, my dad and I played catch. Just throwing that muddy ball back and forth, we did; never talking, never stopping, until the sun gave up and so did we. He never said goodbye, and that has been waking me up at night ever since.
After he died, the state plucked me out of a life that ventured on without me, and dropped me into a new one without so much as a nod. Since much of my extended family lived elsewhere, the Walkers fostered me when it seemed like no one else would. Lloyd and Betty they were, and they seemed nice enough. But the day I met them for the first time, I was sitting across a crowded room, looking at my dad as he lay in a pearl-gray casket. Battleship gray, he would have called it. They stood behind me, and patted me softly on the shoulder, and shuffled me around for “hello’s” and “goodbye’s”. They tried to console me, and they even paid for my grilled-cheese-and-tomato-soup dinner. But the truth is, they didn’t know me and I didn’t know them. I was scared, and angry, and I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. Even when they lowered my father into the ground, I felt like I was somewhere else. I felt like I was flying, like Superman; and I was cold, and the wind and the rain made everything gray and blurry so I couldn’t see.
I went to live with the Walkers in October of 1958. They lived in a quiet residence out in the Virginia countryside, where the gravel streets snaked this way and that, through the lush hills and beyond, never ending. Quaint little houses dotted Appomattox County, and the vast woodland was in deep autumn: the sweet maples were sprinkling flecks of red and gold; and the wind rustled them, and begged them to whisper to each other. I thought they were whispering to me, and I felt flushed with anxiety. Like starting a new school, except that this strange and unfamiliar place was now my home.
Honestly, the Walker house was quite cozy. There was no television (which I instantly hated), but there was a warm den filled with rows and rows of books – classics, and recent novels, and even encyclopedias – lining every wall save for one, which supported a mighty brick fireplace with a wide stone mantel. The kitchen was tidy, and the fridge was brimming with ham, cheese, milk, and all the necessities a ten-year-old’s tummy yearned for. But my favorite part was the backyard, which wasn’t really a backyard at all. Twenty yards from the back porch was the wilderness, massive and proud, yet somewhat inviting. I could visualize the morning light seeping through the branches, and the early mist rolling down the hill and settling quietly along the clearing. I could hear the robins chirping to each other in merry conversation, and the squirrels bristling through the leaves in search of breakfast. It was like no place I had ever experienced.
And there was no place quite like my room, either. The walls were barren, and the floor might as well have been. The bed sat stiffly in the center, garnished with a dull plaid design that matched the equally uninspired drapes falling rather sheepishly along each window. A single oak nightstand bearing a single midnight blue lamp flanked the bed; while a lonely, handcrafted wooden writing desk resided smugly along the north wall. No action figures, no baseball pennants, no family photographs. To a lonely kid who had just lost his dad, there was no solace to be found in such a dreary place. It was warm to my skin, yet utterly cold to my soul. Although it was quiet, and I did eventually get used to sleeping there, it never felt like home. It was shelter.
The Walker house couldn’t hold me, angry and confused as I was; so I trekked frequently into the woodland behind the house, propping myself up against some blackened tree to read Dumas or Twain or whatever I could find. I loved books. They shipped me off to places I had never been. Places I would rather be. They didn’t just read me a story: they made the story mine. There was something magical about the time I spent with a book. As I read, the spine creased and the pages became worn, and the cover faded under my fingers. But the words never went away. They never left me. Not even after I had read them all.
I remember the very day I met Earl Greenwood: the man who would save my life. On occasion, I would march down that long, winding road into town; usually on some errand for Mrs. Walker, but mostly for my own exploration. The town itself was quite small, with only a few meager structures lining a shoddy gravel street that the bustle of amblers and dogs occupied. The post office sat crudely at the southern end of Mosby Street adjacent to the courthouse and the deputy sheriff’s station. Further up the street was the barber and beautician, a joint business; and still further up was the general store.
It had been there for years, the general store, even before the first big one; and it was in varying stages of disrepair. The screen door sagged on its hinges. The old gray icebox that sat lazily on the porch hummed erratically, puttering as if it had caught a sniffle. And the plank roof, rotten with age, bowed out over the street, sneering at wandering passersby. It sneered at me too, on that crisp Sunday afternoon. It sneered at me, and smiled; so I took the invitation.
The store was cluttered inside, and a faint dusty mist swirled about as the screen door snapped back. I was in. The front racks opposite the counter housed the necessities, while the display window showed off some rather expensive gift items, such as a ten dollar bicycle and a twenty-five dollar radio set. Small candy jars, tobacco pouches, and pipes lined the counter; and a surprising number of records sat neatly in a box on the far end. The rear of the store seemed ancient, however: a heavy dust covering the clutter of pots, pans, hammers, shoeboxes, washboards, rocking chairs, and everything else that didn’t sell because people already owned them. They seemed like a mess of relics left over from some bygone era, all waiting to be carried away.
The boards creaked and cried under my feet as I shuffled forward, and I was startled by a commotion originating from behind the counter. All of a sudden, an elderly man with wide eyes stuck his head over that counter and looked right down at me.
“Huh. What can I do for you, son?” he asked.
His silver hair gleamed as it sloped neatly back from his hairline, and his cheery face sported subtle wrinkles that cut this way and that, weaving and dipping like ridges on a topographical map. His lips were drawn up in a smirk, and his crumpled fingers rested along the counter’s edge, all lined in a row looking at me. I was mesmerized by his eyes: they were wide and deep, but elegant; and his brow was furled down, as if he was wise in the greater things.
“Eggs. Do ya’ got eggs, mister?” I quickly replied.
“Behind you. Second shelf.”
I turned quickly and spotted a row of brown egg cartons, a dozen in each, and carefully picked one up. After placing the knurled carton on the counter, I dug into my trouser pocket and produced a pair of faded nickels. I placed them onto the counter; and he slid them into his palm, exchanging the coins for three small pennies.
“Your ma send ya’ down, did she?”
“Not my real ma.”
“Huh. Well, you be careful carrying them eggs back home. Don’t go crackin’ them now,” he said, smiling, as he dropped all three shiny coins into my waiting hand. I started for the door, but stopped myself, turning back around.
“Wait. Mrs. Walker said I could spend what was left on myself,” I lied.
“Did she? Well, that’s three cents you got there.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, and fiddled with the pennies in my hand.
“So, what are you gonna’ do with ‘em?” he asked. I looked around the store.
“I know!” He disappeared behind the counter and fiddled through some unseen boxes before reappearing with two small packages in his hand. He set them on the counter and slid them toward me.
“You like baseball cards?”
“Sure do,” I exclaimed, grinning.
“Well, I tell ya’ what,” he said, clapping his hands together, “two packs should get you on your feet. That’s a penny and a half per pack. How’s that sound?”
I nodded and relinquished the pennies, swiping the pair of glossy packets quickly down from the counter.
“Go on, open ‘em! Let’s see who you got.”
We thumbed through each pack, card by card, name by name; and Earl stopped on just about every one to tell me the batting average of the player, or a hometown, or some other lesser-known fact. Earl knew plenty about baseball – much more than I – and he sensed that I guess he just sensed that I was interested. As a matter of fact, I was engrossed. I seldom caught a game on the radio – the Walkers preferred to subsist in silence – and there was not one ball field in town, so I gladly took anything baseball I could get.
We spent a good hour or so talking, Earl and I, and not just about baseball. I told him how I came to live with the Walkers, and how my dad was dead, and how it was my fault. He told me it was nobody’s fault, like everyone did; but then he told me something I had never heard before.
“Life is in life’s hands, son. Not ours.”
It didn’t really mean that much to me that day, but I have since rolled it around in my head every day for years. Sometimes I think about it when I’m driving to some faraway city, or when I’m sitting in my den with nothing to write. I’ve never forgotten. Life is in life’s hands. Life belongs to life. I don’t remember exactly when I started believing that, but I can’t imagine where I would be if I hadn’t.
As odd as it was, I had a friend. I started spending a considerable amount of time at Earl’s store, of which we spent talking baseball, and telling jokes and stories, and making funny faces. I bought a pack of baseball cards with each visit (Mrs. Walker was upset with me over the first two packs, but slowly granted me allowance for doing chores), and eventually Earl started building a collection for himself so we could trade. One day, he traded me a Mickey Mantle – my favorite player – for a Cliff Chambers, who batted barely over 200. Earl said Cliff was his favorite player, but I’m pretty sure he was just being a friend. Months went by, and I came around so much that Earl started me out as an assistant right there in the store. Sweeping the floor and dusting the counter was my responsibility, while Earl managed everything else. We made a pretty swell duo, in fact, until Earl took in a wandering Retriever that was muddy and tired and hungry as the dickens. We hosed him off out back and fed him fruits and vegetables, and for the rest of the day he loafed near the door under the sunlight and dozed, and his shiny golden coat gleamed like a lion’s back: he was ours. I called him Bandit.
The years passed, and I got older, and Earl and I would sit for hours in the store playing pinochle or rummy (until Earl taught me how to play chess); and we chatted endlessly. Earl mostly told stories, about his daily trek as a kid through northern snowfall just to catch school, which I thought was absurd. He told me that it was important to embrace one’s own future, even if the present was holding him back.
One summer evening, Earl and Bandit and I sat on the porch underneath the rotten roof and an old buzzing lamp that, faded as it was, attracted all sorts of insects. I remember asking him about the war, the first one, and I can still feel the unfamiliar silence that Earl gave to me in return. I felt ashamed for even mentioning it, but after brief hesitation, he answered anyway. I had expected to hear about whizzing bullets and rolling tanks and all of that, but Earl chattered about the mud. The blue mud, he called it, because while the mud was decidedly gray, everything was gray in the war; and just looking at the mud of the trenches made you wish the war was a dream. The mud was either your best friend or your worst enemy, he said, because it was your trench and it kept you safe; or it gave up on you under your feet, and made you shiver and squirm. That was the real war, he explained. Firing a weapon that wasn’t yours in the direction of people you never knew, and sitting in a hole you hated, and waiting to die over something you had since forgotten. He was quiet for awhile after that, and we just sat and listened to the unseen crickets, and to the wind, and to the world spinning.
Much of those years spent with Earl I can’t recall, but even today I can feel the warmth that those days transfused into my soul. I can visualize how every day was like the day before it: long and lazy, and painful; dark and luminous, and sweet; and shocking, and endless and perfect. Earl and I talking while we arranged the store and then rearranged it. Bandit listening intently, allowing an occasional friendly stroke of the head. The world going on without us, as if we were late catching the bus. And then there were the little flakes of memory, the little snapshots that the mind takes so you will never forget. The day we played Uncle Dave so loud the ladies down at the barber/beautician almost threw up a riot. The day I beat Earl at chess twice, and then lost seven times in a row. The day Earl and I put Bandit into the ground. The hour that my draft card came. The day we huddled around the radio to hear that the president had been shot. The day Mr. Walker died. The day I graduated from college, and how I cried when Earl stepped up over that hill under the golden sun like an angel, and how he shook my hand like a father. I will never forget.
I left Virginia for Vietnam, and I fought and crawled and cried and maybe died a little. I saw the mud, and I tasted it; and it was blue like Earl said. But the mud is part of life, and life is in life’s hands. I would have told that to Earl too, but he was gone when I came back. I might have collapsed right there, and never spoken another word in this world, if I hadn’t remembered what Earl said to me that day. Life is in life’s own hands.
That man saved my life. Not like some war hero would have done, skipping over landmines and dodging Nazis to rescue some poor kid who had taken one in the leg. Not like that. Earl caught me that day as I fell, and gradually kept me up. He gave me something to remember, to hold on to, like a crutch that never slipped. And he taught me that life lives you, not the other way around. I never thanked Earl for his gift, because I didn’t realize just what he had given me until he had gone: so I hope that this will somehow honor the man who stood me up – like a toy soldier – and sent me off to the future.
Right now, I am standing outside my North Carolina home, under the moonlight and a roof that is far from rotting. My wife and two daughters are cuddled together inside, watching a movie. The rain is pouring over the house, in a soft pitter-patter that feels melodic, and the memories come to me like the soft wind that brushes my face.
Stepping out into the rainfall, the mud washes away, and I am clean. Here we are – me, and my wife and two daughters, and the Walkers, and Bandit and Earl, and my father – all sitting and talking and playing, and letting life live while the heavens cry for us all.
END
