Almost Heaven (12 page)

Billy wept as he read. But he still drove her to the school until her training was complete. As a graduation present, he bought her, with his own savings, a used car to drive to work. He even paid for her first six months of insurance, which she couldn't afford. I suppose it saved him having to drive her, but I did not see the reason he would spend so much money without hope of a return on his investment. Perhaps he believed he could still win her heart. This is the way of humans, to hope in something out of reach. That hope was dashed the day his mother sat him down and told him the news that the girl was getting married.

The most heartbreaking scene I can relate came in a park, on a summer Saturday. Billy parked far from the venue, near the tennis courts on the other side of the hill. He walked the long way around and finally stopped at a spot overlooking the garden, which was almost in full bloom. The afternoon sun warmed the ground, the scent of roses filled the air, and Billy sat in an area scattered with pine needles and tall grass. Here he was unseen.

Everyone was dressed nicely, and folding chairs had been arrayed. A flower girl spread rose petals on the walkway between rows as a string quartet played the familiar strains of Beethoven and Pachelbel.

The music lifted above the valley floor, but when it reached him, I was sure it sounded more like a dirge. The groom and best man appeared in their finery. From the back came the bride with a brilliant white dress, which I was sure she did not deserve. She took her place beside the groom and they both said their vows, which they had written themselves, amplified by the small, tinny sound system.

“I promise to cherish and care for you as long as we both shall love.”

Billy shook his head. He stayed on the hill, engulfed by the green trees, leaves, and pines, even after the service ended. A dog came near, sniffing at him, off the leash and wandering. Billy called the dog over with a wave, and the dog let him scratch its ear. The couple who owned it called, and the dog seemed reluctant to leave but obeyed after licking Billy's hand.

After most left for the reception, the bride and groom remained for pictures. They stood in an arch surrounded by roses, a bridesmaid and the best man with them. Smiling, always smiling for the camera, and then hurrying back to a waiting limousine.

After they were gone, Billy made his way down the hill through the thick birches and scattered maples. He crossed the asphalt road and walked through the rose garden, where three men wearing ties folded chairs. It was the bride's father and her brothers. Billy started at the back and began folding until the older man stopped and recognized him.

“Didn't see you at the ceremony, Billy,” he called. “What did you think?”

Billy kept his head down while folding. “It was real nice, Mr. Blanch. Perfect day for a wedding.”

“It was hotter than blazes,” a brother said.

“Yeah, you're lucky you didn't have to get dressed up in this monkey suit,” the other said.

The father came back to Billy. “You don't have to do this, son. We've got it.”

“If it's all right with you, I'd like to help. I'd feel like I was doing something for her.”

The man smiled. “All right. We appreciate it.” He went back to folding the next row, making small talk. He suggested Billy would one day conduct weddings, as “religious” as he was.

“I don't think I'm cut out to be a pastor,” Billy said.

“Why not? You seem to know the Word just as well or better than most reverends.”

Billy smiled. “Now how would you know that?”

“My sister-in-law has kids who attend your Sunday school class. They say you could teach a mule the Romans Road.”

“Teaching kids and teaching adults are two different things.”

“I expect they are, but they both spring from the same well.”

Billy nodded. “I expect so.”

The father stopped his work and looked at Billy. “I'm real sorry about this. I know you did the best you could for her. And if I had any say in it, I would have told her to give you a chance. But you know daughters don't listen to their fathers in matters of the heart.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Blanch. The truth is, I was just a friend—and not a very good one.”

The man shook his head. “I don't think so. You were the best friend she ever had.”

Billy pulled something from his back pocket and handed it to him. “I'd be obliged if you'd give this to the bride and groom for me.”

“Why don't you come to the reception? I know she'd be happy to see you.”

Billy went on folding the chairs. “I don't think that's a good idea. But you fellows go on. I'll finish up here.”

“We couldn't let you do that.”

“No, I insist.”

The man sighed. “Well, all the chairs go in that hauler over there. You can just lock it up and leave it. We'll come back later and take them to the church.”

“Thanks, Billy,” one of the brothers said, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair.

Mr. Blanch shook Billy's hand. “I'll make sure she gets your card. You're a good man, Billy.”

Billy nodded and returned to the chairs as the three drove away.

I had not thought it important to look at what Billy was writing when he filled out the card in the parking lot of a Walmart. He had spent an eternity looking through them, choosing just the right one, and then made some mistake in what he had written and returned to buy an identical one. I knew I should have paid closer attention when tears flowed as he licked the envelope closed.

On the outside he wrote, “To the Bride and Groom.”

As Billy drove home afterward, I moved to the reception and found the mound of gifts and cards. Mr. Blanch placed Billy's on the stack and it remained there. I returned to Billy and found him alone in his living room listening to one of his favorite albums and eating a fish dinner he had ordered from Long John Silver's. If he only knew what that food did to his arteries.

Two months later, Billy got a small white envelope in the mail. He seemed to recognize the handwriting that did not include a name, just the return address from North Carolina. He walked slowly back to the house and dropped the ads and bills on the kitchen table, then made his way to his shop. Billy worked on electronics and woodworking there, things he used his hands to craft. He did not enjoy fishing as much as his friends at the local diner, but when they showed him the artificial lures that drove the bass crazy, Billy took the broken lure he was given and brought them an even better one the next morning. The men around the table, friends from his church, marveled at his ability and asked for more.

In the midst of the dust, wood chips, and solder, Billy sat in his squeaky chair, surrounded by old equipment, half-started projects, schematics, and letters from the FCC, and stared at the small card before him as if it were some talisman that could bring back the past.

His mother knocked on the door lightly, in her right mind on this day. “Is everything all right?”

“I'm fine, Mama.”

“All right, now don't work in here all night. I'll have supper ready directly.”

“I'll be there.”

When she closed the door, he carefully tore open the envelope, holding it close enough to sniff at the lingering scent. He pulled out the small note. Her familiar handwriting was there, only a few sentences with flowery script that filled up the space easily.

Billy,

Thank you for your note. Your friendship means a lot. Thanks for being there through some hard days. We're going to go out to dinner and use your gift!

Sincerely,

Heather

Billy held the card close to his chest and looked out the small window at the front of the house. “‘Fare thee well, my own true love,'” he sang. “‘And farewell for a while.'”

He picked up the mandolin and strummed a few chords and sang along, picking out the bluegrass melody he had apportioned to it. At the end, with tears falling, he smiled and put the instrument away. He placed the note in the envelope and opened the top drawer of the old military desk he had bought at auction. The drawer was cluttered with all kinds of gadgets and used electronics, switches and diodes and circuit boards, as well as paper clips, rubber bands, loose change, and grease pencils. He stashed the note deep underneath the junk and pushed the drawer closed.

When he stood, it was like a weight had fallen from his back. And this ended another sad chapter of the life of Billy Allman. But the sadness would not end, of course. Neither would the longing or the searching and striving.

9

Floods leave gaps in the wake, fissures and clefts of memory that songs cannot reach. And so it is with my life. There are things I cannot revisit. I find it easier to edit these scenes and shove them away and pray they will not haunt me. Sometimes you have to just shovel away the locusts that have eaten your life and move on the best you can.

My diabetes diagnosis is one of these. I choose not to remember the darkness of those days, my inability to deal with the reality of the disease, and the many consequences of my decisions. But there are other events that have no diagnosis, no name to hang on them in my limited lexicon. Forgive me for jumping over these. It is not because I am trying to be dishonest.

I feel like just about everything I touch in life goes bad. If there is a syndrome for people who pick up bruised fruit, I have it. That may sound like a pity party, but I don't mean it to be. It's just the truth. And there are worse things that can happen in life than to watch your mother die, but not many. To see the one who gave you life, who suckled you at her breast, wither away both in mind and body is terrible. But it is even more terrible to think of her in some other place than the home she kept for thirty years.

Mama's health had been declining for years. She had to quit work at the beauty shop because most days they had her coming in, she couldn't make it, and when she did, she chased business away because of her attitude. I don't know if the death of my father triggered it or if it was going to happen all along, but somewhere in the long trail of her DNA, something came loose like laundry from the clothesline. And once a sheet gets caught by the wind, there is no telling where you will find it.

I woke up one winter day and found her outside in the snow in her slippers. Her feet were red from the cold and she was walking along the edge of the hill I'd finally made a down payment on, moving from one tree to another calling for a childhood dog. I hollered but she said not to come closer, that no dogcatcher would take her beloved Sugar away. By then I knew better than to try and convince her that I wasn't the dogcatcher.

She was crying when I caught up. “I can't find him anywhere. And he gets so cold. I'm afraid I'm going to lose him. I'm afraid he's not going to make it.”

She scratched the living daylights out of me when I picked her up and carried her back to the house. Her nightgown was wet—and not just from the snow. It is one thing to drive your mother to the doctor. It is quite another to clean the mess when her bowels let loose.