“More? More than losing both parents?”
“Yes,” he said, and he said it slowly, “there was just too much more. Too, too much more!
People thought Gwen and I were lucky to inherit Dad’s estate. We gave up our apartment and moved into their house. Fortunately it was debt-free, so we could afford to live there on my earnings, which of course weren’t those of a famous cardiologist like my dad. But this was all short-lived. Far too short.”
Joe choked up. Excused himself, turned from the table, took a handkerchief from his hip pocket. Held it to his face.
“I’m sorry if I am pressing you into such difficult territory,” Willy said, “if you’d rather not go on, I’ll understand.”
Joe turned back, swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, said, “No. I have to examine it again. Every so often it is useful to go over it. If for no other reason than to get past the pain.”
Willy nodded, looking sympathetically into Joe’s eyes.
“We hadn’t been in the house a year when Gwen and I were out to dinner. One of our rare nights out. We heard fire engines. Not uncommon in the city. What we didn’t know we found out shortly.
~~~
“The fire was at our house. When we got there the place was surrounded by fire equipment, engines, police cars, police, ambulances. They wouldn’t let us through the fire-line to the house.
We asked, ‘Where are the children?’ My wife went into hysterics. And I about followed her.
Neither the police nor the firemen would tell us anything. That of course, just made things worse.”
He stopped, fell silent, head lowered, handkerchief halfway up to his face. In time, he looked up at Willy.
Joe nodded, said, “Yes, the fire took both our boys. No one can explain how or why that happened. We even lost our cat and dog in the fire. The best guess by anyone was that they were all asphyxiated by smoke before the flames got to them. That’s the merciful view. It’s certainly an easier way of dying than being burned alive!”
“You poor fellow. My God, I can’t believe such tragedy! You are right. No wonder you took to drink.”
“Wait. It gets worse.”
“No. It can’t!”
“Yes. While my wife and I had hardly found new living quarters, I came down with a severe case of the shingles. Know what they are? Let me tell you. I broke out in a rash all around the middle of my torso. Here. All the way around to here.” He gestured with one hand the area around his waist while raising his other arm.
“I mean it itched both outside, as well as on the inside. You can hardly get any sleep for the discomfort and agony of this malady. It eventually ends of course. But when you are suffering, you can’t imagine it ever will.
Willy blurted out, “What in the world was God thinking? Giving you so much to endure? All at the same time?”
~~~
“That was what my wife said. When I got ready to go to church as soon as I was comfortable enough, Gwen said, ‘Are you crazy? I’m not going! Curse God, for letting all these things happen to us. I’d rather you and I die, than to serve Him now!’
“So, like it says in the Bible, I told her, ‘Naked I came into the earth, and naked I will leave it. God has given; and God has taken away.’ I continued to worship the Lord and thank Him for all that I still had. I had to force myself with gritting teeth. But I did.
“Does sound crazy, doesn’t it? In hindsight, I have to agree with Gwen about that.”
People came into the restaurant while Joe continued his tale.
Chapter 7 -Pastor Jack Comforts
The new customers ordered, ate, and left.
“It was bad, but I was better able to endure pain in my own flesh — a lot easier really — than to endure losing my own children. Horror of horrors! Then, too, the loss of my parents. Loss of all my belongings, including family treasures going back four generations or more.”
“I hear you. I think any of us would have doused our pain in drink. Or find some other narcotic. Anything at all. Anything to ease the pain!”
“Still,” Joe said, “the shingles ate away at my innards. So much, and so deep. I scratched and scratched and could not get to the itch inside. It was so bad I was using the sharp-edges of a piece of a broken bowl to scrape away at the sores.
“I was sitting at the kitchen table. My wife saw me. She said, ‘Why not! Why do we bother?
What’s the point? We should really consider it, Joe. Really. I mean we could end it all — end all the misery of your sores. Our sorrows! It could be the end of it all, if….’ I tell you, Willy, she was so upset she broke down. Broke, all together.
“And in my truly abject state, in my pain, my grief, my overwhelming sorrow, I could only hear words coming from my mouth, as though listening to someone else, ‘Are we going to receive the good from God, and not the evil?’ Where in my heart that thought came from, I do not know.”
“Sounds like a classic line. From a classic drama,” Willy said. “Hard to believe you can even speak about it now. Must take real courage to face it. Even in hindsight!”
~~~
“It does. But it is, as I say, good for me to cleanse my soul of all the pain. The pain got me so downhearted I could not get out of bed. For a whole week, I just lay in bed, unable to even talk. Three friends, bless them, hung in there with me. Lucky for me, they kept their silence, too. I guess that, like me, they just didn’t know what to say. Not until at the end of the week. I couldn’t take it anymore. I too, like my wife, thought death would be better than all the suffering.
“At any rate, I burst out on Saturday, late in the afternoon, like an epithet, I spit out defiantly,
‘Curse the day I was born!’
“Our pastor, Jack, was one of my friends who were sitting it out with me. He took my hand, closed his eyes. I could see he was praying for me. He held it for a time in silence. Then he said, low so that I was the only one who could hear, ‘Confess it, my man. It’s OK. Jesus forgives all sinners. Come out with it.’
“I told him in a firm voice, ‘But, Jack, I’ve not sinned. I don’t deserve these calamities. I don’t. I haven’t sinned. I’ve done all. All that is humanly possible to live a righteous life.’
“But he persisted. Wouldn’t let up on me. He said, ‘I know. But we all do have hidden sins, sins we don’t know we’ve committed. Examine yourself thoroughly, Joe. Say to yourself the fifty-first psalm. The psalm of contrition. It will help you see what it is that is now hidden. The good are never entirely forsaken by God. Punishment is always for their secret sins.
“‘It will relieve you of your burden. Jesus loves you. Just confess your secret sins and God will forgive. He will. Denying your sins only makes it worse.’”
“I couldn’t take that from him. Why, I wondered, why did he persist in his accusations? And I hoped my other two friends would be more understanding. So I was hoping then, as I lay there, that my other friends, Dwayne and Tom, would speak up. I was just too tired to ask them.”
~~~
Joe shook his head.
“You know,” he said, “I still cannot figure it. Pastor Jack was trying to comfort me. But not.
He just aggravated, though I daren’t show it at the time. He just could not get around the idea that I wasn’t harboring some hidden sins that caused God to allow such tragedies to encompass me. He did try, though. He’d spent a whole week by my bedside during that awful week of suffering. That was a comfort. For sure.
“In a way, though, his subtle accusation gave me anxiety of another sort. Made me wonder IF maybe I just couldn’t see the darker side of myself.
“Then, curses. I got another wrenching hit. This time from my buddy Dwayne.
Chapter 8 -Joe’s Other Two Friends
Joe hung his head as he continued.
He said, “Dwayne had been there with me all that week, too. Even gave up his nightclub gigs for the week just to be with me.
“But, in the end, he too, added to my discomfort.
r />
“Dwayne said, ‘Maybe pastor is right, Joe. Could it have been something you did — or maybe just thought — while we were playing numbers at the club? I’m not blaming you, Joe.
Just raising the question. You know, we work midst the fast-paced life there among the cheery clink of glasses.’
“I appreciated Dwayne’s company more than anything. I didn’t want to contradict him. But, still, I know how much I tried to show my folks my devotion to my family. And to God. They fully expected I’d give in to the worldly temptations of nightclub laxity.
“Strange, isn’t it, how when people put in so much effort trying to comfort you, and yet can so easily shatter it with such a simple comment? I don’t think I’ll ever understand.”
~~~
“My other friend, Tom, was a psychotherapist, God bless him. He too stuck by me all through that horrid week. Didn’t even go to his office or home to his family in all that time.
Yeegads! Can you imagine what a gift that was? Count them. Twenty-four hours a day for a week. Over 150 hours! You might think of it as therapy! I couldn’t ever have paid him for that amount of counseling at a therapist’s hourly rate!
“Still, in the end, he was no comfort. For he said, ‘Joe, there are deep-seated psychological blocks. We all have them, to keep us from seeing our hidden motives. I’m not saying they are bad. I’m just saying they can set us up for the calamities we face in life. Perhaps if we explore these areas we can come up with what’s down in there at the bottom that’s bringing tragedy into your life.’
“You see? In the end, each of my friends let me down. With a few thoughtless words, they each destroyed the good of their noble intentions of sitting with me.”
Willy said, “With friends like that who needs enemies?”
“Don’t misunderstand,” Joe said, “they were more help than I can say. To have stayed close to me during those very dark days. I don’t want to denigrate that for their lack of understanding at the very end of their vigil.”
Willy said, “How in the world did you deal with it?”
~~~
The restaurant emptied. Joe and Willy were now its sole customers. The sweeper began his rounds. He had done the floor adjacent to their table and the rest of the room. Returning, he asked permission to sweep beneath their table.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’ve still got time. I’m just taking advantage of business slowing down to get straightened up for the night.”
Since they were already distracted from Joe’s story, Willy asked, “Like more coffee? I’ve got to tell you, Joe. You’ve gone through more struggles in your few short years than most of us have in a lifetime.”
Chapter 9 -Homeless
They settled comfortably at their table with fresh cups of coffee.
“As a kid I dreamed of becoming a musician. And of course, as I told you, I did get gigs at a nightclub and swash parties. But I thought, like my parents, that jazz was not real music, not like Beethoven or Mozart. So I still wanted something better and to become well-known. I am sure it was my parents’ expectations that were then playing out in my own mind.
“With them gone and my long series of misfortunes everyone said it was no wonder I started drinking. They plied me with drinks at the parties.
“I loved the taste. But more important I immediately enjoyed the effect. I wanted more. One night at the club I stumbled off stage, falling over my own feet. Hog, the group leader, took me aside, said, ‘what are you taking, Joe? You’re losing it. This is the third time in two weeks we’ve had to fill in for you because your hands are not making any sense on the keyboard.’
“He said, ‘You need a rest. I’ll call to let you know when to come in again.’ That was actually the end of my stint at the club, though. He never called.
“Then, at one party, someone offered me a ‘blue pill,’ said it would relax me, wouldn’t make me so drunk. I popped it and liked its effect.
“I had no patience! All I wanted was to get lost in drunken euphoria. I took the blue pills and drank even more. Soon I got into heavier drugs. I went from bad to worse. Lost even the party jobs. I hate to confess this, but I repeatedly stole their things to sell for my growing habits. No one called me for any more parties. Even my friends left me. I should say I lost all my good friends, because I was beginning to associate with stumble-down drunks.
“Dumb! I know. But maybe it was necessary. I mean, for me to hit a bottom before I could begin to crawl back.
“It got even worse. If you can imagine. I stole from stores to sell things to buy bottles. And drugs, of course. I mean everything! I was bad. I actually became homeless. I lost all, and couldn’t pay rent. First I lived in my car. Then I sold my car to feed my habits. Can you believe! I actually ended up in a homeless shelter. Just imagine!
“But wait! There’s more! I took what they call the ‘geographic cure,’ though didn’t know I was doing that.”
Chapter 10 -Hung Over in Detroit
“I hitch-hiked across the country, slept in train and bus depots. Mooched on relatives, my aunts and uncles, cousins, and even dad and mom’s friends.
“I could tell that, right from the start of each visit, no one wanted me to stay. I felt like a burden, a heavy, unwelcome burden. People seemed willing to help me. Not in a good way, really. They helped me alright! Helped me to get going away from them. They’d give me food, a bus ticket to another town. Money. I sensed their desperate desire to be rid of me.
“Of course, as I now look back, I can see just how foul-mouthed I had gotten, how demanding
I must have looked, how despicable my clothes must have become. Crumpled, ragged, smelly.
Talk about rebellion. It was even more than rebellious!
“I still wanted to play music. Express myself, you know. I didn’t think anything was wrong with that. Couldn’t understand why no one understood me. I wanted so much to be understood.
To be wanted. To be loved. Yet, in hindsight, I see that I did everything possible to make myself misunderstood, unwanted, unlovable.
“That’s the short version. I could tell you a lot of boring details. And all along the way I was preached to. By my poor aunts and uncles. By my cousins. By my friends, if you can call them that. By preachers — of all sorts. They all warned me. They called me back to the Lord.
“I wasn’t ready. I had to go down. I mean…down!”
“Tell me,” Willy said, “Wasn’t there something good about yourself that you could see and want to preserve?”
~~~
“You ask a good question. But at the time I did not know this, or not know it as well as I do now. But, it is true, that despite my reckless appearance and just as despicable behavior, there was a slight note of kindness that showed through from time to time. I was able to help a guy here and there who was even worse off than me.
“If I had a few dollars one of my aunts gave me, like one time in Missouri I met up with another guy who was hitching but hadn’t eaten that day. Yeah, I gave him a couple of bucks for a sandwich. I did that more than once. But, you know, Willy, even more important than food, for there is always a food kitchen in most towns, even more than money for another hit or drink, I certainly didn’t know it at the time as being from God, but just being there with a guy who was suffering. Like I felt about my friends who sat with me during my horrid week. Sometimes just listening to a person talk, without interrupting, actually hearing the words he speaks, what he is saying, not criticizing, just hearing him out, that was a gift I was giving — and I didn’t even know it.
“It would be a long time, a long road, a leap of great distance, before I could realize any of this. Really understand which was which and why it was that I did it. And when I finally did come to my senses, I could see that it wasn’t my education that helped. No that was just a tool, like a shovel. Unless someone knows how to use a shovel, and use it well, in the right way, and puts in the right effort, the ditch cannot be dug.
“So, too, with my class-r
oom learning. Merely a tool. Like a shovel. That’s all! And it’s only good if it is used properly. I mean with a good heart, a good spirit of Jesus behind it. And that is Love. As Paul said, the use of one’s college education is like a clanking cymbal, sounding brass, unless there is Love behind it, driving it.
“I tell you, of all those I’ve ever seen helped in their suffering, no help came from a doctoral degree! None. The help came from the love of Christ in someone’s heart — whether they are highly educated, or have no education at all. It is only when love comes from the heart of the giver.”
~~~
By this time their cups were drained. Joe swirled the dregs, looking into it, said, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Sorry. It must be a shipboard acquaintance-sort of thing. We may never meet again. And somehow some quirk inside us human beings enables us to tell perfect strangers our most hidden thoughts. Sorry about that, Willy.”
“Not at all,” Willy said. “I’ve got nowhere to go. And it gets lonely out here. Anyway, you’re leaving me in suspense. How’d you get from down to up? You know what I mean.
From the gutter to the pulpit?”
“Yeah, I can see I’ve gotten off on a very downbeat note. Sorry about that. But, yes, there was a denouement. A great bounce back. Obviously. You were there at the service this morning which is proof.”
“You were good. I felt warm and fuzzy after your services. Sorry, don’t mean any disrespect.
The words just came popping out of my mouth — without my thinking.”
“Good words, really. Thank you. And you are right. That is my calling — the pulpit, I mean. Making music from the pulpit, to use my jargon!”
They both smiled.
“First I had to be called to Jesus. That was the first step. But, I had to go through a lot more first.
~~~
“One day in Detroit, I was so hung over – I’d slept outdoors. On the street. That was the last straw. I awoke out of my haze, said to myself, ‘I can’t go on like this. I can’t go down any lower! I can’t face that. I need help. I don’t know where to go, who to see, what to do.’ Do you mind my telling you this?”