Little Bluestem: Stories from Rural America

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  His mother didn’t come to the games. Too old. Hearing shot and twisted so that everything that was said against the background of the reverberating gym would drive her outside in just a quarter. Even the football was too much. So she sat home while Gilbert went on.

  Last game he came home in a sweat. Something about the final score. LO-RD, he had said. Gilbert and Lord were real close. Connected. But sometimes he didn’t watch the road, reading all those plates. She remembered the last game, though.

  His Volkswagen Rabbit diesel sputtering in the driveway. Funny how she could hear the car, he thought. Shouting common words at her in the house and then hear the car, even in winter, waiting up for him. Waiting up for a sixty-one year old pastor! But he had wanted to tell her, because there was no one else to tell at that hour of the night and during the other hours no one who would listen or whom he could trust.

  Jimmy Lueck had brought the ball up. He always was good with the ball. So he got it over the centerline at Humboldt with :29 left. Came right side. Switched right in front of the stubby redhead that they have for point guard, right under his nose, heading left and he got Red on his hip. Got him there and kept him there, real safe. Safe and secure from all alarms. Kept at it, still left, then stopped and looked. Red stopped, too, but a step slow, the clock at 12, so he got a quick look right, the wing man coming up, and bounced it to Jerrod Holtman. Leaning on Jesus, leaning on Jesus. Confirmed just three years ago, now a sophomore leaning down and out to snag the ball. Tall gangly kid with a rash of pimples on his face and raw knees. Leaning on the ever-lasting arms. Knees and elbows and big hands. When he gets something in those hands! Handshakes in church for instance, not even knowing the power. What have I to dread, what have I to fear… Well, he GOT it. Got it and pivoted and looked low post, real casual like, the ball in the vise of his hands, when they thought they would be having it right then. Leaning on the everlasting arms? He still hears the slap. Hears it at night usually. SLAP and then the whistle. There was this red mark just above the wrist on the right arm, showing up when he dribbled the ball at the foul line. Nine seconds it was. I have blessed peace with my Lord so near… Put in both shots. Ice water in the veins. The Humboldt crowd hooting. Sunk ’em both at nine seconds, then GRAY HAWK! Eight. And at seven Lueck fills the passing lane, gets it and coils it out to Hudson, the big center. Five! Four! Hudson back to Lueck. Three! Lueck dribbles it out. Leaning on the ever-lasting arms.

  The Erie people are going nuts, and he is just sitting there looking at the board and thinking of the numbers. First, of course, is the score. But also he noted the final seconds—12-9-7-3. Holy numbers. Twelve tribes don’t you see. And the trinity. The triune God. And the ninety and nine. Seventy times seven. He waited until things calmed down before trying to get up the nerve to drive away from that one. His knees were weak from the Presence and he was glad he couldn’t see the plates very well at night.

  His mother understood the twelve tribes. Yes, she could see that. But the score. “It was sixty all when he stepped up to the line, wasn’t it,” she asked? Yes it was. Gilbert smiled, his white face creased with thick folds when he grinned and it seemed to open up his whole visage, from the high, mostly bald pate right on down to the jowl when he did that. He smiled. And then said softly (but she could hear): It was the half-time score, Mother. Half-time score was 27-32. Twenty-seven thirty-two them leading, but I wasn’t worried. It was so plain. I knew. Twenty-seven equals L + O; R + D equals thirty-two. LO-RD!!! Sitting there right behind them, I just knew!