Love is a Wounded Soldier (40 page)

“Tell you what,” he said. “We’re havin’ a
bit of a special service at church tonight. There’ll be a coupla baptisms, and
a fellowship after. How ’bout you come with me, and afterwards, we’ll go see if
we can round up that lost car of yours?” It really didn’t seem like I had much
of a choice.

“OK,” I said, not so much consenting as not
resisting.

~~~

The church was full that evening. Pa made
sure he had us there early enough to introduce me to pretty much everyone there
at least once, and my hand got pumped so often it wouldn’t have surprised me if
water had started flowing out of my nose.

As for the service itself, I paid little
attention to most of it, since I viewed my attendance there as a means to an
end. While the preacher was sermonizing, I occupied myself with thinking
thoughts I should have been ashamed of about the leggy redhead in the next pew.
And though I’ll never know what topic he was preaching on that night, there was
something he said as he was winding things down that lodged itself in my ear.

“Maybe something I’ve said has offended
some of you tonight,” I heard him say. “But before you get too angry at me,
would you first examine what I’ve said, and ask yourself this: Is the thing I
said that made you angry true? The truth will never rub you the wrong way,
unless you’ve positioned yourself to be at odds with it. So if it feels like
the truth is rubbing you the wrong way, turn around! You can’t win against
truth! It’s like trying to paddle a canoe up a waterfall! Fighting it will only
exhaust you! Sooner or later, the truth will conquer you, and only your pride
will keep you fighting a futile battle that you cannot win.”

He kept talking, but I was already too
gorged with food for thought to listen to any more. It all began to make sense
to me. I’d spent several weeks inwardly seething at the offensive things Pa had
said to me. But now, instead of viewing them simply as things I found to be
hurtful, I allowed myself to entertain the possibility that the reason they
grated me so was because they were, in fact, the truth. And if the preacher was
right, the truth would not be denied. I was just prolonging my own agony.

When we left the church some time later, I
was still sorting things out, but was beginning to feel the peace that
surrender to the truth brings. It made me feel ashamed for how I’d been
treating Pa. I felt like I should apologize to him for how I’d been behaving
toward him the last while, but though I got the words loaded and the hammer
cocked several times, somehow I just couldn’t pull the trigger. Pa had stopped
speaking his mind to me, and now, I suddenly felt like I needed to talk, but I
really didn’t know how to get things started.

“There it is,” Pa interrupted my thoughts.
He pointed down the street, where my Buick was parked in front of the Crazy
Horse Saloon. I’d been so deep in thought I’d forgotten about my missing car
for most of the night.

“So it is,” I said, a little relieved.

We pulled up beside it and I got out. I got
into my car and went to start it. There were no keys in the ignition. I looked
around on the dashboard, the floor, the seats, but my search for the keys
turned up nothing. I looked over at Pa, who was still parked beside me. He
looked at me questioningly, so I walked over to explain.

“I can’t find the keys,” I told him,
feeling a little downcast.

“Oh,” was all he said. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. My ring of keys.

“Would these work?” he asked with a sly
little smile. Instead of being angry, I felt a sheepish grin creep across my
face.

“Couldn’t hurt to try,” I replied,
snatching the keys that dangled at the end of his outstretched arm. I got back
into the Buick and we were off.

By the time I reached the edge of the town,
I determined that my drinking days were over. It was time to face life and
reality like a man again. It was time to start dealing with things.

I remembered the bottle of Jack Daniel’s
I’d stowed under my seat, and decided I’d better get rid of it before it
tempted me at a moment when my resolve wasn’t quite as firm. I felt around
under the seat, but couldn’t feel anything, so I leaned forward even further
and moved my hand around side to side. Still nothing. I leaned down so far I
almost drove myself off the road before I realized the bottle simply wasn’t
there.

I sat back up, perplexed for a moment. Then
the light came on. I smiled and shook my head. You win this round, asshole! I
thought to myself, not at all angrily.

When I got back to Pa’s place, he was
already brewing a pot of coffee. Instead of retreating to my room like I had
done of late, I sat down at the kitchen table. I needed to talk.

“Here, have some cookies or cake,” he
offered, setting down a plate of leftover sweets on the table that some kind
ladies from the church had sent along with him.

“Oh, no thank you, I had too much already,”
I declined. “I will take a cup of coffee, though,” I added.

“Comin’ up,” he said, pouring coffee into
two mugs and setting them down on the table.

He started nibbling on a piece of cake and
I lit a cigarette. Neither of us spoke for a while. I wanted to apologize, but
I delayed and procrastinated like swimmer trying to coax himself to jump into
cold water. Finally, I put one toe in and started wading in slowly.

“You picked me up last night, didn’t you?”
I asked him rhetorically.

“I did,” he replied, as if he didn’t want
to make a big deal about it.

“Thanks,” I said. “It won’t happen again.”
He nodded, but didn’t look convinced.

“I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve been. I’ve
been doing some thinking, and I think you’re right about some things. Well, a
lot of things,” I corrected with a crooked grin.

If he was flattered he didn’t let on.

“So what does that change?” he asked,
almost challengingly. I was taken aback.

“Huh?”

“What does that change?” he repeated. “What
have you thought about that you’ve decided to change?”

“Oh, well, uh, I guess drinking. No more
drinking,” I offered.

“That’s a good start,” Pa agreed, but looked
at me as though a good start was all it was.

“And I guess try to let go and stop feeling
sorry for myself,” I ventured. That was a hard one.

“Good,” Pa nodded his approval. I felt I
was coming close to over-extending myself already, so I stopped before I made
too many promises.

“I guess I’ll start with those,” I said.

Pa took a sip of his coffee, set it back
down, and traced his finger inside the ear of his mug.

“Have you thought about forgiveness?” he
asked. That was a tough one.

“I’ve thought about it,” I said hesitantly.
“I don’t know, I just haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“So what’ll it take for you to ‘get that
far’?” Pa asked pointedly.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, “time, maybe?” I
hazarded. I looked at Pa as though wondering if he had the answer. He did.

“No!” he said forcefully. He continued
speaking with passion. “Time ain’t the answer, because you’ll die before you
feel like forgivin’. And forgiveness ain’t somethin’ you do when you ‘get
somewhere.’ Forgiveness is a choice you make. And it’s a choice you can decide
to make the moment you’ve been wronged, or it’s a choice you can decide you’re
never
gonna make.”

Instead of being slighted and becoming
defensive as I had been in the past, I listened to his counsel without
resistance.

“You say you’ve decided you ain’t gonna
feel sorry for yourself no more. Now if you really mean that, then you will
forgive. Because the only thing that’ll keep you from forgivin’ Ellen is
feelin’ like you got a right to hold onto your hurt.” Now he had things moving
along just a wee bit faster than I was comfortable with.

“Well, how can I forgive her if she hasn’t
asked for forgiveness?” I countered weakly. His smile scolded me.

“You know better than that,” he chided. I
knew he was right.

“Besides, if she could, she would beg you
for forgiveness,” he added quietly. I looked at him through a veil of smoke and
waited for him to expound on what he had just said. But he just took another
sip of coffee and popped the last bit of cake into his mouth. I needed more
than that. I needed an answer to a question that had been on my mind for weeks.

“You said she was tore up when you talked
with her,” I said. “What did she say?” Just talking about Ellen was painful
enough, but waiting to hear the answer almost terrified me. I was allowing myself
another opportunity to feel compassion toward her, and part of me still fought
against it.

“She said she loves you, Robert,” Pa said.
“She said she would do anythin’ if she could only turn back time. If she could
only make things right. She’s repented, there’s no doubt about that,” Pa stated
with certainty.

“She wants you to come back home, son,” he
said with feeling, as though interceding on her behalf. “She said she’d do
anythin’ if only you’d come home. Even give up her son for adoption.”

“She said that?” I asked.

Pa nodded. “She told me the baby is like a
curse, a reminder of her sin that she has to care for day and night. And Lord
knows she don’t need a reminder—she can’t stop thinkin’ about it to begin
with.”

I felt my throat tighten. Pa looked at me
kindly, and I could tell he had compassion for both me and Ellen.

“You still love her, don’t you?” he didn’t
ask so much as state. His eyes were shiny.

I let out a laugh that sounded more like a
sob, then sighed deeply. “You know, for the longest time, I didn’t think I
did,” I replied. “I didn’t see how I could have so much anger, and bitterness,
and—and hate against someone I loved.” I shook my head.

“Carin’ hurts, don’t it?” Pa asked the
bottom of his mug.

“Like hell,” I replied fiercely.

We lapsed into a silence that must have
lasted 10 minutes. I allowed my mind to travel places it hadn’t been in ages,
back to days when our young love had thought it was immortal.

Memories I’d forced into the shadows crept
back out into the light. Memories that were so beautiful I almost cried out in
pain. I wondered if Ellen had spent the past year thinking back about those
things that I was only beginning to think about now. I thought about the guilt
she must be carrying. Tears pooled in my eyes and finally spilled over. I
cared. I’d cared all along.

“It’s funny,” I finally commented, wiping
my eyes. “I’ve seen more things, felt more things, than most men will in their
lifetimes, and I don’t wish what I’ve been through on anyone. I’ve seen death,
I’ve felt fear, and despair, and—and pain—things that made me want to die. But
I’d have never guessed in a thousand years that it would be love—love, of all
things—that would make me wish I’d never lived at all.” Pa and I both took a
minute to ponder what I’d just said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Pa concurred.

~~~

The struggle didn’t end that night. All
week long I fought for and against forgiveness, debated whether I should try
going home, and tried not to think about booze altogether. It was as though I’d
been called on to fight multiple battles on several fronts, but I wasn’t
certain which side I wanted to fight on, so instead of becoming victorious, I
simply became tired, wildly flailing at anything that moved.

By the following Wednesday, I’d made enough
money to pay off Pa, but that only added more weight to the load I was
carrying. Since I no longer had a debt to pay off, I had no reason to stay, but
the thought of going home was more than I could bear.

Instead of using alcohol to escape, I tried
using sleep, but found my mind never slowed down enough to provide even the
basic amount of sleep necessary for functioning normally. Depression pressed
down on me, and my thirst only intensified. I began to feel helpless, as though
I was going to get sucked back into despondency and alcoholism whether I wanted
to or not. Things began to feel like they were coming apart, all over again.

The next Sunday morning I willingly tagged
along to church. It seemed it couldn’t hurt, and I hoped I might hear something
that would give me some sort of direction like I had the Sunday before. I knew
I needed something, because I was beginning to feel as though my life was
hurtling down an incline and the wheels were starting to fall off.

But though I listened intently all service,
I didn’t hear what I thought I needed to hear. In fact, I was a wreck all
through the service.

Some traveling evangelist named J.B. Smith
preached the message, and the man was as close to a spitting image of Jedidiah
Hankins as he could be without being kin. His mannerisms, speaking style, and
passion for lost souls and the gospel brought back memories of the soldier
everyone had respected, and many had loved. I couldn’t look at the preacher
without thinking of Jedidiah, and one thought would lead to the next horrible
thought, and before I knew it, tears were flowing freely down my face. The
evangelist must have thought the Spirit was moving in me something fierce,
judging by how emotional I was. But when the service ended, I still had no
direction, no peace, no anything.