XXI – When the Cops Came (and a Bro Almost Got Tazed)
You don’t know who your friends are until the cops are called.
Stand-up comedian on Open Mic Night at Go Bananas
Yes sir, officer.
Randy, Speedway gas station, late Monday afternoon
Joe Granger and his pastor Matt said goodbye to Jesse Henderson and his friend Randy in the parking lot of the Silver Handle. None of them knew all that would happen in the next twenty-four hours, but that’s a feature of being human. So the pats on backs and the handshakes and the “it was good meeting you”s were of the simple, Diet Coke variety.
But something did seem to settle in Pastor Matt’s heart as they watched Randy’s F-150 head east, in a race against the sun’s setting. He stared and smiled, and though he was unsure of the source, he smelled the faintest scent of something big on the wind. He was right, and I won’t claim to know whether it was luck or the Holy Spirit, but I know enough to know neither of us can say from this side of the grave. But he smiled that rare smile he had, and then he looked over at his most faithful church member, who was smiling in his own way, which is to say that Joe Granger’s eyes were slightly narrowed. The shadow of a crow flying overhead crossed his forehead, and Matt noticed his unshaven face as he looked at him gazing out at the truck bearing the son of a man he thought he’d failed a lifetime ago. Joe was a redwood, trunk as thick as the house you grew up in and branches as old as your grandfather’s best stories and roots so deep no storm could ever do more than make them grunt and smirk and then dig in a little deeper. Matt had never loved any Christian brother as much as he loved Joe Granger right there in the parking lot of the Silver Handle, and he was overwhelmed by the gift God had given him of a church, a family, a people as much blood brothers and sisters as any other on earth. Maybe more.
“Think they’ll be okay?”
Joe didn’t answer, but Matt knew he’d heard him, and that was enough.
“I tell you what,” he said, looking back at the road, though the truck was out of sight by now. “I think He’s doing something in Jesse. And if our God doesn’t give second chances, no one does.”
“Amen,” Joe Granger said.
About five miles outside downtown Jackson, Randy decided he needed some gum. Jesse was holding the old blue coffee can, feeling his chest tighten and tasting copper at the back of his throat as he realized the only thing standing between him and the end of this thing was so many miles of asphalt. They’d be there soon. He was nervous about the idea of talking to a strange relative who might live there now, despaired a little at the possibility that there might be nothing to find and no way to find it, and also tasted a little of the new flavor of fear that came with the knowledge that by tomorrow he’d be back home with no job and a funeral to endure and a divorce to try to wade through. All of it took the color out of his face and some of the hum and electricity of the last couple of days, out of the moment he figured he should somehow be savoring. Suddenly this day seemed bleak.
“Fine,” Jesse said, turning the coffee can a little in his hands and wondering, not for the first time, when his father had last touched it. His fingers and Bruce’s, touching the same metal. The world was a strange place. His father’s hands were on a slab at a funeral home now.
Gum. He needed gum?
Randy pulled into the Speedway by turning right, which, when Jesse looked back a day later, seemed to have some significance. But he couldn’t say why. He pulled into the second parking spot, looking left-to-right, directly in front, and Jesse decided to get out with him. He suddenly felt like a coffee or a soda. And that was how it happened.
The two guys were walking in from the right side of the station’s parking lot. They each had sleeveless shirts on, and the shorter one, about an inch shorter than Jesse, looked angry about something. Jesse was looking down, thinking about what he would say first if it were somehow a relative who opened the door at the house, and he bumped into the shorter one. Any man who’s been to middle school can probably picture how the subsequent throwdown started. The man, who had been taking anabolic steroids for about six months, shouted an inquiry at a bewildered Jesse, who looked shocked and said, “Sorry, accident.” The man, who hoped to soon start a career as an ultimate fighter but whose longest working stint would in fact be much later served as a long-haul truck driver, stuck his angry face up into Jesse’s and gave him another inquiry, this time as to what Jesse had said. Jesse, all 170 pounds of him, seemed to have some sense that the situation was suddenly getting away from him, and that was when Randy came around from the driver’s side of the F-150 and up onto the curb that ran along the front of the Speedway.
Everyone needs a Randy, and not least among the reasons is that his mere presence changes almost every equation. Randy wouldn’t back down from a black bear, and it was obvious to anyone who looked at him for more than three seconds. Three seconds was about all he had to make an impression on Trey and Scott (Trey was the short one), but it was enough. As he walked up to Jesse with three shades more purpose than normal and a smile that made it clear there was enough behind it to mean business, Trey made the mistake of looking at Scott. That told Randy all he needed to know, and his “Is there a problem?” was intended to be the period on this sentence.
Unfortunately, the next teenager who came out of the Speedway was a rowdy kid, and he gave a sarcastic “Oooh” that teenagers are known to give in the halls of their public high schools (Mrs. Carlisle knew it well) when a fight is about to erupt, and for Trey that might as well have been the starter’s pistol. Randy didn’t feel the punch that hit him in the jaw on the right side, but he knew it landed because his ears started ringing. He’d taken enough punches in the face in his nearly half-century on earth (five) to register the “this is only a test” squeal in his right ear and the tingling on that side of his body. And to know what to do. Before the Jerry Springer high school kid holding his Red Bull even had a chance to shout to his buddy about how “dope” this all was, Randy had stepped in front of Jesse, taken Trey’s pharmaceutically-enhanced left arm in his own left hand, spun him around, and was holding him. The guy’s back was pressed tight against Randy’s broad chest, and both of Randy’s arms were stretched downward in a V shape, his elbows locked and his fingers intertwined. He had just the whispers of a smile on his face as he calmly said, “Calm down. We’ll be okay.”
Jesse was stunned, barely understanding what had just happened in a space of time equal to the Sprite commercial that made him laugh in the lobby of the Holiday Inn early yesterday morning. And before he could make a decision about whether this was the second or the third craziest thing that had happened since Randy and his three-dollar sunglasses had breezed into his life like a glass bottle housing a message for a castaway, the thirty-eight-year-old assistant manager of the Speedway leaned his upper body out of the double doors on the right side and said, “I’ve called the police. They’re on there way.”
“Dude!” the bigger guy said loudly to Randy, looking to Jesse like he was saying what he had to while secretly despising his friend (Jesse, like usual, had it exactly right).
“Shh,” Randy said. The guy couldn’t see through those Blues Brothers sunglasses, just as black as Randy’s hair, but he had the feeling he winked at him.
“He just punched you?”
“Yes sir, officer.”
Randy was talking officer Louis Bradley, seven-year veteran of the Jackson Police Department and eminently sensible young man. Trey and Scott were seated on the three-foot high stone retaining wall behind him, just to the left of the gas station’s left side double doors. Standing with them was Officer Bradley’s partner, Joe Farber.
“Yeah, ’cause your boy crowded me like a little -” and then Trey said a word I won’t bother to repeat.
“Shut up, Trey!” Officer Bradley said, turning his head just slightly to the right as he yelled behind him.
“You’re kidding me,” Randy muttered. When Officer Bradley turned back to to him prepared to continue writing down Randy’s statement, Randy asked “You know him?”
“We went to school together,” Officer Bradley answered. “He was different then.”
“I can guess,” Randy said.
“What did you say, ____” Trey yelled, repeating his second favorite word (“jacked” was his favorite).
“Do you want to get tazed?” Scott asked him, looking at him with open disgust for the first time. Trey didn’t answer, instead continuing to glare at Randy red-faced and somehow looking sweaty despite the fact that he was seated. And there was a breeze.
“Then what happened?” Officer Bradley asked Randy .
“I held him for five minutes. Then I let go when I saw your cruiser coming down the road there. He turned around and spit on me.”
“And did you see this?” Officer Bradley asked the Red Bull kid, who had his own pair of sunglasses on, though for a different reason.
“Uh, yeah. He, like- That’s what occurred, sir. Officer. I’m not, I mean, I just parked over there. I’ll be on my way. If that’s okay.”
Officer Bradley took down the kid’s information as he nervously tried to remember his own street address. When Officer Bradley was done, he let the boy and his friend in the Fox Racing hat get back into their gold Nissan Sentra and drive away.
“He’s high,” Randy said.
Officer Bradley smirked and nodded as he wrote down a last item on his pad.
“All right, I think we have enough here, gentlemen. You’re sure you don’t want to press charges?”
Randy nodded and smiled.
“All right, you two are free to go. Have a good rest of your day.”
“Thanks, officer. We’ll just get some gum and be on our way.”
“Are you sure you want to go the rest of the way?” Jesse figured he had to ask, even though he didn’t know what he’d do if Randy said he wanted to call it quits.
“Yeah, I just need you drive for a little bit,” he said, holding the sandwich bag filled with Speedway ice the assistant manager had let him take for free.
Jesse stopped walking at the edge of the pickup truck’s bed and turned around so that he was looking Randy in the eyes, or at least where he assumed his eyes were behind the shades.
“You’re sure?”
“Jesse, at this point you’d have to point a shotgun at my chest to get me to turn back.”
And this time he really did wink.
“So where did you learn to do that?”
Jesse found driving the pickup truck surprisingly easy. He wasn’t precisely sure what he’d expected, but the dashboard and pedals and everything else weren’t confusing or bigger or anything.
Randy took the bag of ice off his face for a minute. As he did, Jesse wondered what it felt like to be punched in the face.
“I had to do it twice when I worked security at a club in Omaha for a few months about fifteen years ago.”
“What does it feel like to get punched in the face?”
“You want to see?”
“Wait til we get there. It’ll be a nice distraction, anyway.”
Randy looked out the passenger’s side window. This was only the third time he’s ever sat in the passenger’s seat of his truck. He expected it to feel odd, but for some reason it didn’t. He looked down at the inside door panel and the armrest. No color worn off like there was on the other side. Almost mint condition by comparison.
“Is there anything else I should know about where we’re going?”
“We’re taking the route with those numbers that he drew, the little legend or whatever,” Randy answered. “At least that’s what we’re trying to do. I still don’t know exactly what he meant, but it was some kind of a trail.” Jesse slid the horizontal A/C control down a notch. “Sheriff’s Office. Then his house.”
“We’re going to look around that house? Or under it or something? Just shimmy into some stranger’s crawlspace? I just want to make sure I’m prepared.”
“I’m hoping his family still lives there. And I don’t think it’ll go well even if they do, but my best case scenario is they tell me who he was. Why he ran. Maybe even what he did.”
Randy worked his jaw a little. He didn’t think it was swelling, but it was stiff.
“What’s the worst case scenario?”
Jesse smirked like you might when you’ve just finished vomiting. It was a tired, pained little half-grin.
“I’m not sure.”
It was a half-lie. Seeing himself in a forty-five year old yearbook had given him one guess about how this would end.
Which is why his palms were sweating as he gripped the wheel.
The answer for Rachel wouldn’t be in the lousy hospital hash browns and powdered eggs she barely ate. Brandon was sure of that much. Her mom and dad were up there at the hospital sitting with her now, but he had come to Redeemer’s building to see if Pastor David was in. He wasn’t, but Pastor Terry was in his office next door, and when Brandon had asked if he had a minute Terry had told him he sure did and would meet him in the sanctuary in just a minute. Pastor Terry didn’t like having conversations in his office, at least not when it was somebody he was particularly fond of. It was a cramped space, and he liked spreading out and stretching his legs as he talked.
Most young men who love a woman need a Terry. Brandon hadn’t taken a big blow in life yet, not the kind that knocked you down for months and left you winded and with dry mouth for a day or more and made you question whether you could do all the things you needed to do for the next week or month to keep the bills paid and the food on the table. Brandon needed to hear from somebody who had, and who also loved him. Someone who wouldn’t just tell him to buck up and keep moving. This wasn’t a “buck up” moment. His son was dead and his wife had seriously injured herself breaking out of her hospital room for some reason and now she hadn’t said more than four words in a day-and-a-half.
When Terry walked into the sanctuary in his light purple polo shirt and wearing the dryest and friendliest of smiles (Brandon had the strange thought that today he reminded him of a tall, skinny turtle), Brandon stood up for some reason, as though he were a head of state and this was the first day of peace treaty negotiations. And then he did something he’d never done. Brandon started a conversation by crying. And when Terry sat down in the row of chairs in front of him and stretched his legs out on the two to his left and patted Brandon’s hand as he sat back down himself, Brandon knew in his gut that God had wanted him to talk to Pastor Terry. Nothing was an accident.
He spilled it all, though it took a little longer than it normally took Brandon to tell a story. His ten-speed bike nature had been taken into the shop for a few days, and now he was riding a yard sale Huffy with a flat rear tire. Pastor Terry listened for nineteen minutes and fifty-four seconds as Brandon told him about the baby, Rachel’s incident, and her total despair. Pastor Terry had never heard a young man’s heart so invested in his wife’s wellbeing, and he was genuinely taken aback, but he didn’t register that on his face. He was all calm and intense focus on the face, not through any precise calculation on his own part but simply because that’s how he reacted to situations like this. It was no small part of why he was so good at them.
Brandon sounded helpless because he was. He would have chopped off his right hand to be able to give Rachel back her joy and her spark, but he couldn’t. His mind and memories and desires right then were a sketch, a map that he couldn’t finish. All of the brush strokes were frantic, anxious hopes to give some better day to Rachel, but he was frustratingly stuck now, right here in this chair in the second row at Redeemer. He had no idea where or how to even start. And he was furious with himself for not being able to help her, which only added to the strain on his speech, so that everything seemed to come out not fully cooked. The sentences were half-formed, like, “I just need her to- I want things to be somehow-”
But the God who made the world is wise beyond any and all measure, and He showed some of that beautiful, gracious intent and intelligence in fashioning the church as a means of making and protecting His saints. Case in point: Redeemer Church, like every church where the Good News of Jesus Christ is preached, was an outpost of a King who never sleeps, who governs every crumb of the creation that is telling His story. And so Pastor Terry Goldschmidt was doing office hours that Monday, Pastor Terry whose wife had had three miscarriages, because churches and the people who make them up are God’s doing.
And so after nineteen minutes and fifty-four seconds, Pastor Terry told Brandon what changed their lives.
I have to start over.
I wish I could leave him behind. Let it go. But I can’t. Not all the way. I don’t know if we’ll kill each other someday, but I know we’ll both end up in Hell. That’s the only way this ends.
I’m sorry I ever knew you, but not sorry I loved you.
Goodbye, June.
Bruce