Mutt turned his head and tried to focus his eyes on me. "Tuck?"
"Yeah, pal," I said, my thumb resting ready on the top of the syringe.
"I didn't mean to let him hit her. I promise. I didn't want him to."
"Mutt, it's not your fault. Never has been."
"Why can't my heart believe you?"
"Because, like mine ... it's broken."
Mutt mouthed some words but uttered no sound. He recannonballed himself, and finally the words came. "`Love is a choice. It's a decision.' She told us, `It flows into, through, and out of each person like a river. If you try to stop it, it'll snake around until it finds another heart and breaks through.' Rex never made that choice. He built a dam that not even Force 10 from Navarone could have blown up. Nothing remains now but cracked mud, dust, and bones, and it would take Elijah to bring them back to life. But," Mutt said, swallowing hard, "she was right; love snaked around and found her. She had the love of ten people, and Rex the love of none. He was Salt Lake, and she was Niagara Falls."
The evening darkness crept across the floor, and lowflying, heavy clouds rolled in, blocked out the moon, and began spilling a soft rain on Mutt's new roof. I hadn't heard that lullaby in a long time. It started slow and soft, building like a symphony to a soothing rumble. Mutt dozed off, breathing deeply, and his eyes lay still behind his eyelids. I looked at the needle, the Thorazine still awaiting my thumb. Through clenched eyelids, I whispered, "Where does a man find healing amid so many broken places? How does he find love in the ruins and vine-wrapped shattered pieces of his own soul?"
Right here, child. Right here.
I slid the needle out of the meat of Mutt's shoulder, threw the syringe across the chapel, and watched it roll beneath a pew. I stuffed a corner of the sleeping bag under Mutt's head like a pillow, turned, and eyed the railing. Miss Ella's parallel lines were staring back at me. I sat down alongside them and leaned against the railing.
What's wrong, Tucker?
"Thirty-three years."
Child, he'd rather you shout in anger than say nothing at all.
Above me, the pigeons cooed, flapped, and fluttered about. I sniffed the air for the smell of Cornhuskers and tried to remember the words. "Miss Ella, I don't know where to start. Everything is upside down and has been for a long time. Sometimes I look at Jase and I hurt because I used to be just like him: so curious, completely trusting, full of wonder, so honest, so transparent, eager to forgive, quick to laugh, and willing to risk his heart on love-even the love of a father."
What happened?
"Rex happened."
Then maybe it's time you start with Rex.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has sinned against you, then leave your offering and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering.
"I'm not sure I understand."
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
"How does that relate to me?"
You've always had a Father, Tucker.
Chapter 44
I SHUT THE DOOR BEHIND ME AND WALKED DOWN THE path and through the rain to the barn. I slid my College World Series bat, a thirty-four-inch aluminum Easton, from the workbench, cocked it over my shoulder, and walked to my truck. The drive to Rolling Hills was short and the parking lot empty. Rex's room was dark, the Judge lay snoring, melted onto the bed, and Rex sat slumped in his chair next to the window. Food and spittle stained his pajamas, but his diaper smelled clean. His eyes were open, and he looked angry. He was fiercely trying to see something on the other side of the window, and his neck was a bulging bundle of veins and sinew plugged into his wrinkly, contorted head. He was a picture of torment.
I stepped in front of his chair, and his eyes darted up at me. A quivering bottom lip, stern top one, and narrow eyes framed his face. He was talking, mouthing commands, but no words came. In his mind, he was King Arthur, and the crow that caught his arrow was still flying high.
I knelt and touched my father for the second time in five years by placing my hands on both his knees. His Band-Aid had soaked through and needed replacing, and his blank eyes narrowed on mine. "Rex, how much am I worth? Ten million? Fifty million? I mean, at what point is my time worth yours? Am I worth a dollar? Your work at my expense is a disease. A sickness." I placed the bat across his lap. "For most of my early life, I tried to swing this and earn your praise. When you didn't offer it, I swung it in an attempt to obliterate your memory. When that didn't pan out the way I'd hoped, I thought that maybe if I filled my head with enough pictures, I could double-expose the one that contained you. Problem is, the new images won't imprint on scar tissue." I paused and tried to make eye contact. "All I've ever wanted is for you to ... to play catch in the rain, or at the very least, for you to walk me into your office, introduce me to your secretary, and ask her to bring me some hot chocolate and a coloring pad. Maybe take me to a board meeting and say, `Ladies and gentlemen, this is my son, Tucker."' I leaned against the wall and sat down. "Everything I know about love I learned from a little old black woman from south Alabama, a little kid named Jase, a girl named Katie, and a boy named Mutt. And everything I know about hate, I learned from you. You tear down; you don't build up. You drain rather than fill. You eat at rather than satisfy. Worst of all, you sacrificed us at the altar of you. Miss Ella keeps trying to tell me that the only way to tear away the scar tissue is to tell you that I forgive you ... and mean it. She's always telling me to cut away my coffin. Maybe this is what she's talking about. I don't know. Sometimes, I don't understand a word that woman says. I'd be lying if I said I really forgave you, but maybe if I say it with my mouth, my heart will follow. I don't know how long that'll takethat passage from my head to my heart. Maybe that's the `infinite migration' Miss Ella was always talking about. Whatever the case, here today, I'm saying it with my mouth. And every day from here on out, I'm saying it. Because there's more at stake here than just you and me." I placed my finger against the windows and drew streaks in the condensation from my breath. "There's a girl, and she has a son." I laughed. "Maybe two sons, and no, in case you're wondering, I'm not the father of either one, but that doesn't matter. Why?" I paused and whispered to myself, "Because love's springing up through the rocks."
I stood, leaned against the window, and let Rex watch my back. "You are the root of most everything evil in me." I leaned the bat in the corner of the room and stood over Rex. "The sins of the father stop here ... and my love begins."
I walked to the judge's bed and pulled the covers up around his neck. Under the glow of the fluorescent nightlight, his eyes cracked open. He whispered, "I'm proud of you, son." I opened the drawer, slipped the cedar sleeve off a Cuban, and lit it, turning it over and over in the flame to get an even burn. I placed it next to the Judge's lips, and he breathed slowly and deeply. For an hour, I held it while he inhaled the entire thing and wrapped us in a haze of nicotine. Satisfied, he nodded, and I set the smoldering nub in the ashtray next to his bed, angling the fan so it wafted across his nose. Somewhere around two in the morning, I walked out of Rex's room, empty-handed.
"Tucker." The judge's bloodshot eyes spotted the bat leaning in the corner. "If you leave that thing, the orderlies are liable to thump me in the head and I'll be dead by morning. You sure you want to do that?"
I looked at the bat, then at Rex, and nodded. "Yeah, I'm finished with it." The judge closed his eyes, lifted his nose into the last traces of cigar smoke, and smiled.
I walked past the receptionist desk, where an orderly slept, drooling on a comic book. He jerked when I walked by, causing spit to spew out of his mouth like a bull in a rodeo. I waved, and he wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve, looked at his watch, and said, "Happy New Year, sir." When I started
the diesel and shoved the stick into first, the thought of living through another year didn't bother me at all.
The rain had let up by the time I pulled around back of the house and parked next to the fence. Mist covered the windshield, but a new moon was breaking through the clouds and scattering in dim spotlights across the pasture. Black and brilliant specks of shiny flint covered the pasture like a rhinestone blanket. I pulled my collar up, stepped through the fence, and trudged through the soft dirt, picking up arrowheads. Halfway across the pasture, my hand was full.
I looked around me while the moonlight and rain sewed themselves into my shoulders. At the edge of the pasture, I stood and looked into the pines where Mutt's cross rose like a coastal lighthouse.
The night had grown cold and dry, my steps were silent on the pine straw, and the air smelled of turpentine. On the edge of the forest, I cleared away the pine straw and dug my hands deep into the dirt. It felt cold, gritty, and moist. I walked closer, weaving in and out of the cathedral of pines. Circling twice, I reached out and placed my hands on the beams, and the black dirt sifted through my fingers, spilling around us. I wove my fingers beneath the patchwork of vines and felt the smooth, slick wood beneath. The deep vertical grain rose up from the darkness below me and wound upward like candle smoke toward the moonlight above. I followed it. Reaching higher, I fell, pressed in, and rested my forehead against the beam. Not knowing where to start or even what to say, I whispered, "Touch my lips with the burning coal, light me, and let it rain."
Chapter 45
DAYLIGHT SPARKED THE TREETOPS AND SLOWLY BURNED off the fog. The sun rose, broke through the clouds, and found my face staring into it. The rays felt warm after so cold a night. Around me, the rest of the world was waking up too. Off to the east an owl hooted, from the west a gobbler answered, in the north a dog barked, and somewhere south of me a rooster crowed. I breathed deeply.
Tires squealed on the back side of Waverly, Katie screamed, a high-powered engine revved, and a vehicle sped down the driveway. The only sound higher than the whine of the engine was Katie screaming, "Nooooo! Not my baby!"
At the end of our driveway, the driver could only turn one of two directions, so I pushed off the cross, gambled, whistled, hit Glue's back on a dead run, and kicked him all the way down the side of the pasture. Glue pulled up at the fence, and I soared over and started running east alongside the fence toward the elbow in the hard road. I cleared the thorns, hit the pine straw, and dug as deep as my lungs and flailing arms would let me. The car still had a mile to go, and I had about four hundred yards. I heard the squealing turn, the whine again, and knew they had cleared the gate. A half-mile and I still had a hundred yards. I reached a barbed-wire fence, dove beneath it, sliding on my stomach, mucked through the cattails that lined the highway, and climbed the incline. When I reached the top, I jumped as high as the break in my back would let me.
I don't remember the car hitting me, cracking the windshield, flying back over the fence, or hearing the car lose control and spin sideways into my neighbor's pasture, flinging mud like Katie's Volvo. But I was conscious enough to know that car wasn't going anywhere. Dressed in black, the driver dialed his cell phone, pulled Jase from the car, and began dragging him screaming and hollering down the road and into the woods.
I tried to stand up but felt a hand on my shoulder, pressing me gently back down.
Mutt held a baseball bat cocked over his left shoulder and was looking off in the direction of the kidnapper. I had never seen his eyes so clear. He patted me on the shoulder. "You know how you asked me to tell you before I hurt somebody?"
"Yeah," I said, holding my cracked ribs.
"Well, I'm telling you."
Mutt jumped over me, carrying the bat like a tomahawk, and ducked and dodged his way through the woods like the last of the Mohicans. He disappeared behind the trees, headed for Jase's harrowing squeals and muffled screams. I pulled myself up on a gnarled fence post, steadied my head, and listened. If I could pinpointJase, I still had time. Two seconds later, I heard the crack of Mutt's bat on bone and a bloodcurdling scream from a man in agony. I hobbled toward the sound, afraid of what I might find, and discovered Mutt walking toward me with Jase riding piggyback. Mutt's expression was no different than if he'd gone shopping for a loaf of bread. Jase buried his head on Mutt's shoulder and shook between sobs. Crumpled on the ground, with a grotesquely broken left leg, lay a man in horrific pain. His left knee had been torn sideways, and both bones in his shin had snapped in two, adding a new joint. Mutt, breathing calmly and not sweating at all, pointed at the man as if he were identifying a dog. "Trevor."
Jase unlatched his death grip from Mutt's neck and fell into my arms. "Unca Tuck." The sobs squelched his speech. "I don't want to go. I want to stay here with you. Don't let him take me. Please don't let him take me." I squeezed him tight and wondered what kind of man abandons a boy like this. What kind of man abandons any boy? I lifted his snotty and tear-stained face off my shoulder, wrapping both cheeks in my palms. "Hey, partner, nobody is taking you from me. Not today. Not ever. You got that?"
Jase pointed at Trevor. "What about him?"
I looked at Trevor, who was scratching at the dirt and attempting to crawl past Mutt's watchful eye. "They don't allow kids where he's going."
Suspicion and disbelief crossed Jase's face. "But, Unca Tuck, I want to stay here with you. I don't want to go. He"-Jase pointed down at Trevor again-"told me I had to go with him."
'lase, he lied."
"Well," Jase said, putting one arm around my neck and half-sitting on my thigh, "are you lying to me?"
'lase, this is our deal. Right now, you and me are making a pact. I won't ever lie to you, and you don't ever lie to me. Deal?"
Jase nodded. I spit on my hand and held it out to him. Jase looked suspicious again and turned toward the soft footsteps creeping up behind us. Katie knelt next to Jase, kissed his forehead, and said, "Go ahead, Jase." She looked me in the eye and wrapped both arms around Jase. "If Unca Tuck tells you something, you believe it." Jase spat into his palm and squeezed mine. When he locked his frail fingers around mine, the spit oozed out, falling onto the ground. Katie clung to Jase and held him for a few seconds. As she did, the weeks of worry gushed forth followed by the sobs of relief. I grabbed Trevor's cell phone and dialed 911. Trevor objected, but Mutt nudged his leg with the tip of his bat.
Jase let go of Katie's neck, tugged on my leg, and said, "Unca Tuck, I'm not going with him? Right?"
I wrapped him in my arms and squeezed him as hard as I could without hurting him. "Never."
"You promise?"
I sat him on my leg and nodded. "With all of me."
Trevor found the courage to lift himself onto one elbow and sneer at me. "You think you got all the answers, don't you? This isn't over. You may have been some hotshot at one time, but you don't know nothing about baseball, and you certainly don't know anything about being a father." The urge to strike Trevor in the face either with my hand, the bat, or both grew as he hid beneath a smug exterior that told me he had all the right friends in all the right places. But next to me stood Jase, and jase didn't need to see me hit Trevor. He needed something else.
I stepped closer, resting my hand on Trevor's mangled leg. "Let me tell you what I know about baseball." I held out my hand, and Mutt placed the barrel end of the hat into it. I wrapped my other arm around Jase and brushed the tears from his face. When I spoke, I did so tojase, not Trevor. `Baseball is a simple game, really. It's when a little towheaded boy with sweat dripping off his face and bruised shins swings a big stick and knocks a tightly wound leather thing past his dad and through grass that is two days overgrown. He then runs to first base-a towel thrown in the corner of the yard. On to second-maybe that's a spare glove thrown down for the occasion-while Dad tries to tag him. Laughing, the kid rounds thirdnothing but a worn spot where grass won't grow-and heads for home-maybe a bucket turned on its head. All the time, the kid is chased by a dad who is amazed tha
t God actually trusts him with a little boy like this. Winded and sticky with sweat, the boy kicks home plate or slides in exclamation. But it's not over, because the kid then looks to Dad for affirmation. That look is both the beginning and the end. Because"-I gently pointed Jase's chin toward Trevor-"then he asks, `Did I do it right, Daddy? Are you proud, Dad? Do you like spending time with me? Can we do it again?"' I looked at Jase, then back at Trevor. "And think hard before you answer, because it may well determine the path of that boy's soul." I leaned closer, my face just a few inches from Trevor's, and whispered, "And anything other than yes is ..." I stood and held Jase's hand. "Is a crime against every boy ever born." I stood over Trevor and tapped him on the leg. "That is baseball. But more importantly, that's what's at stake here."
The police followed the ambulance toward the hospital with a promise to return later in the day to record our statements. Jase, Katie, and I walked to the house, hand in hand, but said nothing. Dandelions spotted the waisthigh hay as we walked through the pasture. Our feet kicked off the edges and sent wisps of dandelion dancing around our heads and floating downwind. I took a deep breath, squeezed Katie's hand, and thought I caught a whiff of Cornhuskers mixed among the wisps. My body ached, I was limping and could've used a few aspirin, but it was the best I had ever felt in my life. Mutt walked behind, balancing the bat on his shoulder and whistling Johnny Appleseed's song. I'm not sure, but his chest looked a little bigger. Almost swollen.
"Unca Tuck." Jase pulled on my arm.
"Yeah, pal."
"Are the police going to cut off my daddy's you-knowwhats?"
"I don't think so, pal. They'll try a few other things first."
Jase looked satisfied and tugged again. "Unca Tuck?"
"Yeah, buddy," I said, catching Katie's eyes.
"Will you throw with me?"
Chapter 46
"GOOOOD MORNING!" THE KID SCREAMED FROM THE driver's seat and hopped back to his window. I had heard the loudspeaker when he turned down the driveway. Actually, most of southern Alabama heard it, so I left my office and met him at the base of the steps about the time he circled the drive.