Cal Tracey knew he'd been in an accident, apparently a bad accident, but not much else. In and out of consciousness, the last couple of times he came to he saw his family, Judy and the kids, Brenna and Jaron, standing by his hospital bed. He hurt, a lot, sure, but worse was in his narcotic, foggy brain, that he couldn't pinpoint exactly where he hurt although he was aware of bandages –many- and a heavy cast weighing down his left arm. He also had an as-yet-undiscovered cast on his left foot where it had broken in multiple places, crushed. He was barely aware of his arm at all. He would learn in the coming days that the foot had first been broken earlier, before the accident, when the car trailer he'd been pulling behind his buddy Danny's pick-up truck had fallen off a jack stand while he was fixing the running lights. During a brief stop at an auto parts store, on his way from North Carolina to Georgia and 'Rusty's All American Hot Rod Show', an annual event that drew a tremendous crowd, in part because of its timing and proximity to a local NASCAR race at the 'Augusta International Raceway', an event which itself drew more than one hundred thousand fans. In the trailer he had his '1969 Mustang 428 Cobrajet', a now impeccable beast of a car he'd spent nearly a decade in his part-time-with real money- restoring. Cal had more than thirty-thousand bucks in parts and paint which meant he needed to get at least fifty-thousand for it to remotely justify the hundreds of hours he had into it, and to assuage Judy and the kids for all of the crap they'd had to put up with and stuff that they'd missed out on due to his ten year obsession with the car. He took up their entire two-car garage for one thing, so Judy had to park the old Plymouth on the street, no further damage really possible to the already weathered and beaten-down sedan, but it meant that she had to carry everything from the car up the walk and the three stairs into their three-bedroom tract-home they'd been forced to downsize into when Cal lost his good job four years ago. Cal rode a motorcycle almost every day; there was space in the garage for it too. The Mustang, Judy had long ago tagged it the 'snake' partly because the engine logo plate affixed to the lower rear of each front quarter panel featured a fanged rattler coiled and ready to strike but Cal felt too because she had just gotten sick of the thing being around and taking up so much time, space and money.
"You can't even drive it," she'd complained during several different stages of its ten-year journey, half of that spent up on blocks. It started out a beat-up but running fourteen-hundred dollar buy from a guy named 'Rocco' at an auto body shop. A guy who had bought it himself for that same amount six months earlier fully intent on restoring it but never found the time to get started and had to look at it every day sitting there in the corner of the lot, gathering dust and looking like a junkyard dog that could no longer patrol viciously and just slept all day in the dirt-packed shade. So, when the sandy blonde-haired guy in the beat-up Plymouth stopped by a second time to ask if he would sell, the body-shop guy relented, deciding that he was happy to see it go. Cal would have corrected Judy from 'can't' drive it to 'won't' drive it eight years in, as once he got it painted it only had the interior left before the car could be considered 'cherry'. It was mechanically perfect but Cal wouldn't risk a dent or a ding…or a 'key-job' from some jealous asshole when he popped into a store to grab some beer or smokes or something.
Best just to leave it in the garage.
He tried to explain to her that it was painted, and Judy knew the nine-grand that cost meant that she would spend at least another year smelling the fumes back-drafting through a rust hole in the Plymouth's floor, and she could forget about any kind of real vacation that summer, too. A real vacation at this stage of Cal's downward spiral from insurance executive, and annual trips to Florida or twice to Maui, to restaurant manager for a local joint, meant that even driving to the beach and renting a cabin for a few days was probably not in this summer's cards, not after a nine-thousand dollar paint job.
They'd met at college where Cal's illustrious high school football career was supposed to proceed smoothly on to this next level, as in on to college and then on to the pros. It wasn't that far-fetched of a dream; he was fast, the fastest kid at his rural high school, 'Fisher Heights', and had sure hands that never dropped anything he could touch. He was highly recruited by multiple Division Oneteams, settling on NC State (North Carolina) because it meant that he could live at home for the first year; well, at the home of his aunt and uncle who lived just outside of Raleigh. Judy had also attended Fisher Heights but was one year behind and such a 'plain-Jane' as her mother used to say that Cal had no idea who she was despite the fact that she'd always had a schoolgirl crush on the lanky wide receiver. She knew she wasn't the only one; he was a 'dreamboat'. Then Judy matured, blossomed, and enrolled in NC State herself despite being accepted with full scholarship to multiple schools of considerably higher academic standing, because she was obsessed with Cal Tracey and knew he was 'the one' if she could just get his attention. Once she was out of the house and living in the dorms she could dress in ways that showed off her recent curves without drawing her mother's stern disapproval.
"How'd you know I was from the Heights?" Cal had asked, after her cleavage and tight blue jeans caught first his eye and then his time at a local two-step joint one night during Judy's first month there. She explained that she was a year behind him but had gone to Fisher High and that everyone in Fisher and the surrounding towns knew who he was and had watched him play.
Soon after she got his attention, and then all too quickly (and stupidly) Judy became pregnant with Jaron. Cal and Judy were married during his junior year, two months after she gave birth. Cal loved her and seemed to like living with her but still the focus was all on football, and in an increasingly troubling light. No one worked harder during practice; no one studied more game film or left more out on the field than Cal Tracey. Problem was he wasn't on the field during games as much as he would like and if he couldn't showcase his skills he knew he'd never get drafted, and then he would have to try to talk his way into a walk-on tryout with any NFL team that would grant him one, an avenue with a one-in-a-thousand success possibility at best. Fisher was a predominantly white area; in fact there were only two black kids in his grade, fraternal twins. Cal was pretty good friends with one of them, Chili-Ray Cornwell, and had known him and his sister Lisbeth since grade school. They'd hung out more when they were younger but when Cal gravitated to sports, specifically football, Chili-Ray, even with his size and strength was never really interested despite the coaches and Cal's and his other friends' pleas. A couple of times Chili-Ray tried to explain the difficulties of being the only black kid on a team but Cal wasn't much for serious talk like that. Now that Cal was at NC State and up against some of the best high school players from all over the country, and especially at his position, wide receiver, it was Cal who was the minority; there were fifteen wide receivers, though only five really got any playing time, and Cal was number five. He was the only white guy out of the fifteen. He caught his share of locker room needling about the color of his skin, and how it meant he couldn't jump high. Or dance. Or run all that fast. Pretty fast for a white boy- was the mantra. No one in any town around Fisher had beaten Cal in a footrace or a sprint since he was eight years old; now, he was faster than only a couple of guys at his position, scrubs really who were probably only on the team to try to get girls. Hard work and good hands only went so far, and for a while he became increasingly bitter.
"Fucking Tyrell," he said to Judy one night at supper, noting the best receiver on the team. Judy didn't particularly like foul language but planned on taking up that battle next year when Jaron started to talk. "He's lazy. Stupid. Fucking parties all the time. Smokes dope sometimes before practice even, with fucking Stevie, then walks around bragging about how stoned he is when coach can't hear."
Judy had already learned to exercise caution when engaging Cal about football. He was normally fairly soft-spoken, mostly gentle and generally kind. Football made him into something different; something highly aggressive. Sometimes mean. She knew he was jealous of a few of his teammates and their natural athletic abilities because he trained every way imaginable to try to run faster and jump higher, ate right and abstained from cigarettes and alcohol, but seemed to have hit his peak. They'd even discussed trying to obtain anabolic steroids but both were fearful of the illegality and possible health risks and now that he was a dad Cal knew he couldn't risk an arrest or some debilitating injury brought on after being hopped-up on drugs.
As Judy slowly watched the slipping away of Cal's dream she knew that poor Jaron would be pressed to play and pressed to excel at an early age and if he wasn't interested or simply wasn't up to the task, well, she hoped they had another son soon who would be.
At the hospital, it wasn't until the third full day of coming in and out of consciousness that Cal could speak and focus well enough to try to learn about the accident. What he thought he was hearing didn't make any sense. He heard Judy say something about the trailer breaking, some things about 'beer' though even in this state he could swear that he remembered being sober, and proudly, for some time now, then the word 'attack'. Had he suffered some kind of heart attack or seizure, and then wrecked his buddy's pick-up? And the trailer with his beloved Mustang inside? What he wanted to do was ask about his car but things were still moving too quickly and too erratically in his mind for him to focus and then make the words. He heard the word 'hero' mentioned by Judy and Brenna, and then by one of the nurses- did someone pull him from the wreckage? Save his life? Rescue him? He vaguely remembered some strange man being in his room and hovering near the bed. Was that the 'hero'?
If he wrecked the Mustang there was no way he'd get insurance money to fully compensate him. It worried him, and he was struck inside with a nervous laugh: that he could muster up this thought when he was having trouble even following half the words that Judy and the kids were speaking.
"The…car…" he mumbled.
"Danny picked it up last week. Right when it happened. Don't worry, the 'snake' is fine," Judy squeezed his hand and both felt uneasy senses of relief. Cal figured his buddy Danny would be plenty pissed-off having to drive half a day to tow his wrecked pick-up truck but something about Judy's tone didn't make sense.
"He…it…drove?"
"Ssh, Cal, everything with the car and trailer are fine. Danny took the train down and drove them both home the other day when you were still unconscious. You'll just have to go down to the show again next year." Almost uncomfortably with more mention of the car, a palpable calm came over them both.
"Daddy, does everything hurt?" Brenna, his seven year old daughter seemed fascinated by his injuries, while Jaron his teenage son sat in the background and played obsessively with one of those new hand-held electronic video games, keeping an audible run of beeps and dings pealing in the background.
Cal had trouble lifting his right arm, only badly bruised but stuck full of tubes and wires, and three ribs and his sternum were cracked but he forced himself to gently touch his daughters head. "Yep. A…whole…lot," he rasped.
"Bet you'll have lots of scars. Lookit this," she lifted up the dress Judy had made her wear for church (and now hospital visits) and showed him one of her knees, skinned and scabby.
He tried to smile then drifted off into a semi-conscious fog.
So, Danny's pick-up couldn't be that bad off if it not only still drove but was okay to pull the car trailer behind it the two-hundred eighty miles that his buddy would have to travel back to Raleigh. It suddenly dawned on him that he wasn't in the Raleigh hospital.
He opened his eyes. "Where…"
Judy could sense his question. "We're in a town called Simmons. Still in South Carolina. The docs don't want to let you move for at least a couple more days. And then there's talk about flying you back to Raleigh in a helicopter."
Cal nodded slightly at some things as she spoke. Tiny flashes, images. Like spreading playing cards out on a table face up then quickly shuffling them around. And still very little stuck around long enough for him to get a good grasp or to string several thoughts together.
"I took the kids out of school because your ma wasn't feeling so well and I didn't want to leave them with her for an entire week. Or more. We were all so scared, and they wanted to see you, especially when they heard the news. We've been here for four days already."
"Four…?" Cal was shocked; he thought he had been out only maybe for one night.
Judy took his hand and Brenna quickly raced to the other side of the hospital bed and took the other, as Judy said: "Honey, you were in a coma. You took more than four hundred stitches. They were sure," she choked up then drew a deep breath," they said you would probably not make it through that first night. All of that blood."
This didn't make any sense and despite the relaxed worry over his car and his buddy's borrowed pick-up truck he just didn't see how both vehicles could be 'fine' with him so bad off.
Flashes of the strange man in his room came back to him. The hero? Cal remembered him more clearly, the man standing near the bed like a close friend or family member would do. He remembered the man briefly taking his hand the way his wife and daughter were now. He remembered the man was thin and black.
"Who… man…"
Judy smiled but didn't want him to keep straining himself talking. "Ssh, rest Honey. Unless one of those damn reporters got in here you probably mean Mr. Williams. Darryl Williams. They were his two boys…"
Suddenly Cal was washed over with a tidal wave of nausea at the mention of two boys. My god – he thought before he nearly lost consciousness again –did I almost kill someone? Was I drunk on beer? Did I run somebody down? Two young boyus? He carefully measured his breathing as he fought desperately for the memory. The man, the black man who was in his room…it was tense, Cal was alone and could barely move…but Cal wasn't fearful; it was something else. Anger? Was he angry with the man, not the other day in the hospital room but somewhere else? Some other time? He fought back toward consciousness and tried to focus intently on his smiling wife.
"What…"
"Ssh," Judy admonished again. "You rest. There's plenty of time to talk about it later. We're going to go have some lunch so you get some rest," she leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Brenna vaulted herself upward using the side rail and kissed him hard on the cheek; Cal hoped she didn't see him wince when she pressed against his side. "Come on, Jaron," Judy's tone momentarily took the teenager from his game.
"See ya, dad," Jaron said with mild interest and followed them from the room.
Cal slept through the rest of the day but it was an especially troubled sleep, and not just from his wracked body.
Cal dreamt; a vivid dream, satisfying sensorially, almost real despite its choppiness.
Cal saw the man who had visited him in his hospital room, this Darryl Williams, in an ice cream parlor, severely dressing down two young boys. Others in the shop didn't see or didn't appear to care. Cal went to say something, to intervene, but his left foot seemed glued to the floor and he fell when he tried to walk. The man, Darryl, turned from his loud diatribe to look at Cal and smile, then laugh, laughter that grew louder as Cal angrily tried to stand, ready to make the man stop through threatened physicality, through actual violence if necessary, if the man did not stop laughing at Cal or yelling at his own sons. Suddenly, Darryl began to grow to enormous proportions and became the size of a small house, utterly terrifying the now frozen Cal Tracey, his left foot still cemented to the ice cream parlor floor. Then, like that Darryl was gone. Cal looked down at his foot and saw that he was now barefoot and that his left foot was no longer stuck. Dumbfounded, he went to say something to the boys, to ask if they were all right, but they merely smiled at him and strode from the store licking giant ice cream cones as they went. Double scoopers, too.
The next day, Judy was carrying on animatedly, something about a hero and every news outlet in the state clamoring for an interview, even the Associated Press! With a jolt, something snapped. Cal's body, despite the rapid healing, was locked down tight, paralyzed, as if there was no way his mind was going to let his eyes or body distract him for even a moment from the film it was about to run.
Finally, he remembered it all.
He'd noticed the taillight when he stopped for gas and thought he'd heard the rear latch clanging around so he figured he'd better have a look before he pulled back into the heavy, interstate traffic. The taillights were working just fine when he left North Carolina, but now the one on the left wasn't working at all. Cal was always pretty particular and the last thing he needed was some idiot ramming him from behind and damaging his trailer and car, or getting pulled over by a state trooper and fined. There was very little sentiment left toward the Mustang. There had been plenty at first when he bought it, when he worked for Safeco Insurance and they lived in Pine Cove and had a three car garage, but after his downsizing he had no room in his living space or his shrunken portfolio for a fifty-thousand dollar toy. Now, it was strictly business, the car no different than if he had been hauling around fifty-thousand dollars worth of soy beans or fifty-thousand dollars worth of gold. Without a ridiculously expensive rider no insurance company would insure it for more than liability and as he never drove it since he'd restored it, it made little sense to lay out money for that. He was a cautious driver anyway and didn't mind staying in the far right lane.
First chance he saw where there looked like a shopping strip-mall, just over the border into South Carolina, in a ratty little town called Clemmons, Cal turned in to 'Sinclair Auto Parts' and drew his long rig up near the middle of the mostly empty parking lot as he took up three vertical spaces. The lot was cracking in more than a few places and the building looked like it hadn't had new paint or even a refresher in a decade or more, the kind of place in the kind of strip-mall that had long since seen its best days, where you could see a tumbleweed or empty beer can blow across the hot and sticky asphalt and not pay either much mind. What Cal sometimes referred to as 'the black side of town'. As he was parking he saw a man, a store employee judging by his name tag and striped shirt, helping a woman install new wiper blades. He didn't usually go for black girls but this one was a knockout, damn fine, dressed nicely too, professional looking. He could tell that the man was casually flirting with the lady and that his presence outside meant that the store was probably used to people ignoring the ubiquitous sign not to work on cars in the parking lot and would often help out if it was something simple and quick which most parking lot repairs usually were.
Cal got out and had to lie down on the hot asphalt while he followed the taillight wires that ran beneath the frame, finding a kink and a split where a rock must have hit, just behind the rear wheel.
"Shit," he burned the back of his arm on a spot of hot tar, angry because it hurt but also because tar was a bitch to get off. Maybe the parts store had some of that heavy-duty orange hand cleaner in their bathroom that he could use.
Cal walked across and entered the store. He bought a new wiring harness for the taillight then a small toolkit, the kind you leave in your car for emergencies.
Heading back outside into the brutal heat, made more stifling being reflected off the black asphalt, Cal wished he'd bought a can of soda pop or cold lemonade. Or a cold beer or six-pack a part of him thought but that part no longer had a say in such matters as Cal had been 'on the wagon' for going on nine years now, ever since Judy first got pregnant with Brenna and had it out with him over what he guessed probably was a bit of regular, excessive consumption, at the time. It was the only time she'd ever threatened to leave him and while he didn't take that seriously her vehemence did mean that it meant a lot to her so he just stopped altogether instead of merely trying to tone it down. Still, there were times, hot, sticky times like this, his arm throbbing a little from the tar burn, where he regretted having made that decision. Looking in the bed of the pick-up, hoping to find a piece of cardboard or a drop-sheet to lie on, Cal opted for newspaper. He figured to get his work shirt and tie dirty and in need of dry cleaning but he really wasn't in the mood to change clothes over something that would take five minutes to fix, ten minutes tops.
Like most car repairs, again especially those undertaken in a parts-store lot, fifteen minutes later Cal was sweaty and dirty and had one hand that was bleeding from slipping with the cheap, Japanese-made pliers and grinding his fist into the sand-strewn asphalt, leaving a small patch of bloody skin on the ground, some sand and tiny twigs adhering to the wetness of the fresh wound. The triple-axle trailer weighed nearly sixteen-hundred pounds; nearly four-thousand with the Mustang and all of its accoutrement nestled neatly inside. Then, Cal found a second source of trouble when he went to crank the trailer up off of the hitch.
After a few more frustrating minutes Cal went back inside, rubbing dirt and grease from his hands onto a paper towel. Looking around and seeing that the man who had helped the good-looking woman was free, Cal approached the counter.
"Help you?" The man asked.
"Yeah, I was wondering if I could get you to come out for a sec and connect the harness while I hold up the tongue. Damn thing's pinched underneath it. Otherwise I'd need a floor jack."
"Not supposed to do repairs in the lot." The man said, looking down as if he was busy with something.
"Just take a minute. Come on. I'll give you a few bucks."
"Sorry. Can't do it. B'side's," the man looked at the big clock above the door, "I'm off the clock now."
Cal stared at him angrily for a second and the man stared back, then Cal looked around to see if anyone else was free - they were all suddenly preoccupied - before muttering under his breath and walking to the aisle that had the floor jacks for sale. "Should of bought wipers I guess," he said.
The counter man scoffed at the comment, maybe a little louder than he should have, being an employee, loud enough for Cal to hear anyway. Then he seemed to back off. The counter man thought that the last thing he needed was some white asshole, some 'cracker' complaining about him to the owner. Frustrated, Cal bought a cheap floor jack and exited without further fanfare.
"Motherfucker!" Cal screamed violently finally freeing a sentiment that he'd felt for the better part of the last half hour as the cheap floor jack shifted when the wheels gouged into the scorching, putty-like asphalt and the jack stand that was holding the end of the trailer shifted onto Cal's left foot for an instant before shooting out and skittering off violently to one side, but not before breaking several bones in his foot. Cal was tough and generally good about dealing with pain but the cumulative effects of the stinging sweat in his eyes, the counter man's attitude, the throbbing now in his foot as well as his arm, and the heat reflection made him want to grab the biggest wrench he could find and 'go to town' on the fucking trailer. Hobbling, he tried to walk it off but deep down Cal knew that he'd broken something; there were a ton of tiny bones in your foot. He might have grabbed that wrench and gone back inside with really bad intentions if he'd been able to see all of the counter guys laughing at him through the slightly tinted front plate glass. Thankfully, he could not.
Another hour and fifteen minutes; another skinned and bloody knuckle and Cal was on his way, moving slowly into traffic, grateful that his buddy Danny's AC worked well as it was, on high and all of the vents pointed right at Cal's sweaty face. His foot was throbbing so painfully that the full-body clenching from it was actually hurting his jaw and giving him a side-stitch but thankfully it was his left foot so he could still drive. Cal thought about going to the emergency room but wanted to make time. For a minute he flashed back and felt as if he was watching the scene unfold below as he hovered above; his now sweat-stained and filthy work shirt; the blood from two places on his right hand; the burning hot tar stuck to his forearm; then the floor jack slowly digging into the pavement, like pushing your fingers into a fresh-from-the-oven uncooked tray of brownies. Then the jack stand slipping and shooting out to the side and catching the top of his left foot as it tore violently by. He imagined that the counter guys in the store were having a good laugh, a good old laugh at dumb old 'whitey' hopping around the parking lot like an idiot, a guy with a dress shirt and tie, probably some executive hauling some toy around worth more than a year of their pay, so yeah, that would be real funny.
Fucking pussies –he thought, for some reason working himself into an even greater rage. He thought the 'N-word', a word he only remembered using once in his life, in public, by mistake when he was a teen while waiting for the school bus with his friend Chili-Ray. The bus, driven by a black woman, was late, as it often was which meant they'd get to school just before the bell and wouldn't have any time to hang out. Chili-Ray had said: fucking bitch. Whore's always late –and Cal just let the word slip out in his heated agreement before both he and Chili-Ray realized what he'd said and Cal's jaw dropped. So Chili-Ray punched him pretty hard in the shoulder because they both knew that he should, and that was the end of the matter. Now, with his foot and his head… and his jaw and his side now throbbing, Cal thought that if he had seen even one of those motherfuckers laugh at him he would have gone in with that wrench and given them all something to think about.
He turned on the radio and tried to distract himself from the pain, thinking he might actually have to stop at a hospital when like a bad scene in some horror movie, as he crept slowly along in traffic he saw a couple of kids with baseball mitts and a bat walking down the sidewalk with a thin black guy who turned as if he could read Cal's mind and looked right at him, and god-damn if it wasn't that cocksucker from the auto parts store, and god-damn if that black motherfucker from the auto parts store didn't look right at Cal and smirk a little before turning down some alleyway or side-street.
In a darkening, all-encompassing rage that made Cal temporarily forget about his other pain, he quickly turned on his blinker and looked for a way to take the first right.
And go after the man.
The hospital in Pitman, North Carolina was quiet. They'd driven Cal all the way there in an ambulance. Judy figured correctly that it was much less expensive than a helicopter. He'd been here two days now with maybe another week to stay. Cal's brother, and Danny, had stopped by often, lingering to head off the ever persistent reporters who made increasingly more feeble attempts for an interview they were assured would not be coming until Cal was back on his feet. By then the news would probably have moved on to something else.
One late Sunday afternoon, Cal's priest stopped by. He pulled up a chair and sat for a moment, neither man speaking. Then Cal began.
"I'm no hero, father. Everybody wants to think I am because I almost got killed. But, fact of the matter is I went looking for that guy, was going to confront him. Broken foot or no broken foot, baseball bat or no baseball bat.
Two little kids wearing their ball gloves, just walking with their dad."
"Yet you saved them. Saved all of their lives. What do you call that?"
Cal shook his head from side-to-side, slowly. "Can't remember much about it, to be honest with you. I remember getting out of the truck. Looking for the man. And then when I saw him…it was surreal. Like I had already gotten to him and beaten him, beaten him bad. With that wrench or something. Way worse than he ever would've deserved, for looking at me wrong, or maybe even laughing when I busted up my foot. I thought for a minute I might've been drunk; you know, I'd fallen off the wagon, and maybe tuned this guy up, hit him with a wrench. And right in front of his kids. Most humiliating thing you can do to a man: beat him down in front of his family. Beat him down, in front of his kids."
Cal was silent and hung his head low. The priest said: "And then?"
Cal loosed a huge sigh. "Then, I really can't remember. Only that I saw those boys. They were just scared…scared little kids. Had nothing to do with any beef between me and their dad. And then…that maybe…maybe I'd been drinking again, and in a blackout rage just beat a man near death just because he looked at me funny. Or, laughed at me when I broke my foot. Beat him right in front of them. Two boys no older than Jaron, my son. Too much. Too much to handle." Cal shook his head slowly from side to side and buried it in his hands.
"I remember all I could think of, in that flash, that instant, was making it right by them, right by those kids. To keep 'em from being scared.
"Then, five days later I wake up in a hospital. And people are trying to tell me that I'm some kind of hero. That I saved the two boys, and probably their dad too, from getting mauled by a bear. A black bear. "
"So, you're not perfect? Yet you participated bravely in what must be considered an act of god, and three more souls are still alive today because of it."
Cal stared off into space. "I ought…maybe I ought to tell the news why I was on that side street to begin with. How it took me five minutes to find a stretch long enough to park the trailer, then how even with a messed-up foot I still went looking for a man. With bad intentions."
"Yes, you could. But are they not separate issues? Does one negate the another?"
Cal hadn't really thought about it like that so he did now. After a moment he said: "I guess I see your point."
The priest leaned back to re-cross his legs and replace his folded hands gently on his knees. "Let me ask you now. What burns in your heart? Is it anger still? And did you feel god working through you when you put yourself between that rampaging bear and the two frightened boys? Remember, you also could have easily been killed.
"Can you still feel god now?"
Cal thought some more. "Father, I honestly don't know. It's just blank from right after I saw him, saw the man lying on the ground and bleeding, then his boys on the other side of the alleyway holding each other, scared. I mean literally shaking, the older one holding the littler one from falling to the ground. I was so mad…I can pretty much remember being real angry, right up to that point, angry and confused as to what had happened. What I'd done. And then…it's like the movie projector just shuts off and skips a reel. And I wake up in the hospital all bandaged up."
Both men looked out through the window to tall sycamore trees that surrounded the hospital. The priest said: "So. Can you imagine if this man or another looked at you wrong today, or maybe even laughed at your misfortune…"
Cal jolted, hung his head and waved his hand quieting the older man. "I believe I am all done with violence, Father. When you said that…about god…all I could think about was the image of those two scared boys. I think one of them even wet himself.
"I'm not much of a religious man, just Easter and Christmas, for church. And only then, if I'm being honest, only because Judy wants to go.
"I can't tell you I felt god in that alleyway. But I sure felt something. Something greater than my stupid anger. Can't say I don't feel a little of it still.
"Don't feel angry. Can't imagine ever getting so angry that I think to use my fists, not ever again. Just can't imagine it."
The two men looked back out at the trees and the gentle wind that rustled them.
They brought Cal home the following Wednesday. He was stretched out in the back of the Plymouth so Jaron and Brenna had to sit in the front seat with their mom. They were all somewhat surprised, Cal included, that he didn't get irritated when he had to negotiate the three front stairs with his crutches and without putting any weight on his left leg.
"C'mere, boy," Cal motioned Jaron over and leaned on his shoulder. "Big enough to hold up your old man, aren't ya?"
"Sure, Dad." And with some effort as Cal outweighed him by at least fifty pounds, Jaron helped Cal into the house.
They got him settled onto the couch, where he could see out the window to the front lawn and the street, and also see the TV. Judy set about to get dinner started and then came into the living room carrying a tote bag from the hospital in Raleigh. "Here are all your cards and letters." She fished things from the bag and started setting them on the side table near Cal who gave them a cursory glance and then forced a weak smile. "Oh, and I almost forgot. That man, Darryl. I'm pretty sure he left this that afternoon. No note or anything. Strange." She handed him an old, very tightly pressed and folded fifty-dollar bill.
A strange wave of deep emotion washed over Cal. Judy was still talking to him from back in the kitchen but his head was throbbing hard and he couldn't hear as he stared at the bill. It had a look like it was kept in the back of a man's wallet forever; two vertical lines evenly spaced from accumulated dirt cut it into sections like a comic strip when he unfolded it. An old bill. Series '1933-C'.
What was the significance? Was it a lot of money in this Darryl's world, and his way of trying to help out? Was it some kind of street thing, a 'black thing' maybe that Cal did not understand? All he knew was that something about looking at it wasn't sitting right with his gut. He took out his own wallet, folded the bill the way it had been and slid it safely in the back, making a mental note to maybe contact that Darryl and ask him sometime. Give it back to the man.
Cal drifted off into a restless sleep with Judy still talking to him from the kitchen.
It was the first day he dared to have a look at it, his third day back home and the first time Judy had gone back to work and left him home alone. He would have wheeled himself but with his left foot still in a cast and his leg protruding stiffly from the wheelchair he worried that he might bang into something, maybe hurt his foot some more, or knock something over. So he waited all day, half-watching mindless TV, ignoring the constantly ringing phone, stealing the occasional glance at the door to the garage, thinking about what rested behind it; until just after Jaron and Brenna got home from school. Then, he asked Jaron if he would mind wheeling him around for a few minutes.
"I will! I will!" Brenna dropped her backpack and raced around but Cal held up his hand.
"I think I'd like to keep the speed limit below fifty, Sweetie. And you need to take Missy for a walk. Please." Brenna pouted for a moment and Cal thought she might put her fists on her hips like her ma but then she kissed him and grabbed her backpack and moved quickly away.
"Where you want to go?" Jaron set his own backpack down on a dining room chair and took the handles behind the wheelchair.
Oh, I don't know. I thought dancing in the attic maybe, if you don't mind all of the steps."
For a fraction of a second Jaron thought that his dad might be serious but then he smiled and started wheeling him from the living room. "Be kind of hard to haul you up that ladder."
Cal smiled. "Feels pretty good to move around after being in that damn hospital bed so long, I'll tell you that."
Brenna called from the background: "Bye dad. Taking Missy over to the park," and Cal heard a door slam.
"Park sounds like a pretty good idea. I'm not keeping you from anything, am I son?"
"No. It's cool," Jaron steered them toward the front door.
"Whoa, watch the leg," Cal cried as Jaron almost accidentally clipped the doorjamb with Cal's extended leg.
"Sorry!"
"No worries. No worries."
Jaron pulled the door shut behind him, then the two of them sat still for a moment looking at the three front stairs. They hadn't seemed like much to Cal when Judy had to climb them, carrying groceries and the like. Now, they might as well have numbered five hundred.
"Guess we better go through the garage," Jaron said, and turned Cal around. Jaron didn't know that Cal was afraid of the garage, afraid to see the Mustang sitting there, still all snug and safe, and pearly glistening. The truth was Cal was just ready for it to be gone, so Judy could park the old Plymouth inside. And the money would make them both breathe a little easier as Cal's workman's comp insurance would only cover his salary for a year, and the docs had no idea how long it would take for Cal to recover. He also knew he'd only get top-dollar if he took it to a big show and there was no way that was happening anytime soon. The garage had only one step to navigate but Jaron was extra cautious in the uncomfortable silence as he carefully maneuvered the heavy Cal and wheelchair away from the Mustang. Then, the right front wheel on the wheelchair caught a jagged little crack in the cement floor and the chair kicked hard left ramming Cal's cast-covered foot and the wheelchair footrest into the rear quarter panel of the impeccable car.
Jaron audibly gasped as did Cal; the boy only worried about the car at first, Cal inwardly too, but then a bolt of pain shot up his leg and he had to bite down and grip the armrests and squirm not to cry out.
"Sorry Dad! Sorry! The floor! The chair's heavy…" If Cal had been healthy, Jaron would have been shirking from the awaited explosion. None came.
Cal lifted his hand as he got his breath back under control. "Son…son…it's okay. It's okay. It's just a car."
Just a car?! –Jaron wanted to scream in a wild mix of terror and confusion as did a remote part of Cal's brain.
"Sorry, Dad. Sorry! Did I hurt your leg?!"
Cal put his hand on the boy's arm. "It's fine. I banged it twice already myself. 'Why I wanted you to wheel me around."
"Sorry!"
"It's okay," Cal stole a quick look at the nasty little dent and scratch on the otherwise flawless paint, then settled back into the chair as Jaron hit the button and the garage door began to slowly rise. Pushing even more cautiously Jaron got them outside and was about to close the door behind them when Cal stopped him.
"I got a better idea. Let's drive to the park. That way we can avoid all those cracks in the sidewalk. Wouldn't want to break your mother's back! -or mine!" Cal laughed.
Jaron shrugged and turned Cal back around. "Ma won't be home for a while, you know."
"So we'll take the Mustang. Haven't had it out for a while." Cal hadn't actually driven the car in two years.
Jaron had fond memories of several often fast rides before the final paint job. "Okay," Jaron replied with measured caution, then: "How's your leg gonna fit in?"
"I'll just lean the seat way back. Lots of legroom in the '69." Once again Jaron started to roll him but Cal stopped him. "No. You drive."
"Me?" Jaron gaped in disbelief. "I don't even have my license yet," he stammered, waiting for his dad to laugh it off and tell him he was just joking.
"We're only going a few blocks. You'll be fine.
"And son…it's only a car."
They leaned the passenger seat halfway back and with some effort got Cal inside. Jaron's hand was shaking but he fought it and with one slight turn of the key the massive engine awoke as if it was still warm and made its throaty presence beastly known. Jaron looked carefully over both shoulders then eased the car into reverse.
"Just take your foot off the brake and let her roll," Cal instructed as their driveway had a slight downgrade.
"Would you let me drive if this was a standard?" Jaron asked as they drove slowly down the un-crowded street.
Cal laughed. "Not on your life."
They drew some looks as the shiny, pearly car rolled by, and Jaron was ecstatic but kept it to himself when his buddy Michael, who was shooting hoops on the basketball court, caught sight that the Mustang was not only out but that Jaron was behind the wheel.
"Swing around the fountain. And then we can go find your sister."
Jaron was a little disappointed as the fountain Cal mentioned was barely working and off to the side of the park that was becoming rundown and tended to be where some homeless congregated, often cooling off with the weak fountain water during the hot summer months.
Jaron asked: "So, have you talked to that man yet?"
Cal shook his head. "No. Your mom tried to call for his number but the hospital wouldn't give it out. I suppose I could call all of the Williams' down there but that's a pretty common name."
Cal frowned. "I'm not sure he really wants to talk to me anyway…"
"But Dad?! You saved his life! His boys' too!"
Cal held up his hand. "I know son. Believe me I know." Cal shifted painfully in the seat. "Being honest, there was a little more to it, son. The man and I sort of had some words earlier that day. Didn't think much of it at the time." Cal sat a moment, reflecting. Jaron slowed the car even more. Cal continued. "World's strange sometimes, is all. Had a long chat with Father Neal about it. It was violence, son, or thoughts of it anyhow, that put me in that alleyway to begin with. That's what I'm telling you."
"But then it was good that you were there. You saved their lives!" Jaron pulled the car over to the curb.
"Right."
They sat for a moment then Cal waved his hand, motioning for Jaron to drive some more. "Might as well not waste gas idling. You know you're the only one besides Danny and me that has driven this car? And Danny drove it way before it was cherry."
"It's awesome. I think you should keep it. Drive it around every day."
Cal smiled a little at the thought.
After a moment, he said: "Go on over to the fountain, will you?"
A few more people took notice of the slow-moving, shiny car.
Cal saw a man with a shopping cart full of his possessions, a man that he'd seen before. A rail-skinny black man who was somewhere between a rough thirty and sixty years old. Cal always thought that the guy looked a little crazy, and in the past Cal never had given him any more mind than wanting to roll down his window and tell the guy to 'get a job'.
Struggling, Cal squirmed in his seat, trying to get into his pocket, to his wallet, then rolled down the window and motioned the man over. He handed him the tight-pressed fifty-dollar bill. "Good luck to you, brother."
The man took the bill with his lower lip drooping in disbelief.
Jaron looked at his father a little oddly, but said nothing and continued to drive slowly around the park.