Chapter One
Under the Bleachers

We left home before dawn and drove south to Edenfield. My wife, Holly, slept in the front seat next to me with her face buried in a pillow and her breathing in perfect harmony with the drone of our aging Volvo. It was nothing new that she was so mollified. She had always been a model of quiescence, even from the beginning. It had been her strong suit, and the thing that had attracted me to her in the first place. We were quite the contrast. Then and now. Our son, Harris, despite his six-foot frame, lay in the backseat, silent as a babe-in-arms. Harris was our only child, and the excitement of his going off to college had given Holly and me reason to feel united despite our multitude of petty differences. Their combined slumber was a welcomed solitude, one that gave me a chance to further ponder my return. It had been thirty years since I last set foot in Edenfield, since I walked away in the middle of my sophomore year. Still, to this day, I’ve never quite been able to clear my mind of that time, to allow myself the peace that comes from forgetting. Time and again I’m drawn back there, to the events of my carnality and the things surrounding my betrayal.

Returning is what remains of my hope to lay at least some of it to rest. The irony, though, is that I’m less and less sure of myself the closer Edenfield gets. There’s a part of me that wants to stop the car and tell Holly she’ll have to go on without me, be both parents today, but each time I somehow manage to talk myself out of it, my responsibility to Harris being stronger than any need of my own. Then, too, it was the hope of coming to grips with the past, or maybe just knowing that it was time to try, that kept me on course. Edenfield was, after all, a place I once called home.
I’d watched the sun climb in a slow steady arc all morning, first from the car, then from the bleachers bordering the soccer field. It wasn’t typical for the sun to be so brutal above the forty-fourth parallel, to be so torrid. Still, it hadn’t slowed the number of families from packing the blue plank bleachers thigh to thigh.

In the middle of the field a huge purple banner emblazoned with gold block letters was stretched banjo-tight across the front of the speaker’s stand: WELCOME, PARENTS AND FRESHMAN CLASS OF 1993. Its satiny brilliance glistened in the sun. I wasn’t much for ceremony, yet I waited patiently. The fact that I waited at all was uncharacteristic. I was never very good at it, but today seemed appropriate that I should at least make the effort. This was our son, after all, opening a new chapter on his life, and I was determined to be a part of it. The sun, though, seemed determined to challenge my resolve in much the same way Edenfield had three decades ago.

Every so often a stray cloud offered an umbrella of relief and allowed me to scan the crowd without shading my eyes. Despite an added thirty years, there were faces almost familiar; brief eye contact, but no names. Did they recognize me? I almost feared they would.

Between the un-breathability of my polyester suit and the bunching of my boxer shorts, I was uncertain how long I could feign a pretext of wellbeing. All around me, others seemed so collected, so unbothered, including Holly. She sat undaunted on my right, not bothering to notice my anguish.
“Aren’t you HOT?” I asked. She turned her face toward mine and examined me as though I was some sad little thing in need of a hug. It was a look I had become familiar with over the years, one that she woke with most mornings and one she embraced as the antecedent of who she was.

As a last resort, I rose and excused myself with only a faint look of apology. I could think of little beyond the cool shade beneath the bleachers. Holly watched after me without the slightest change in expression. She had no idea where I was going, only that I had reached my limit.
The underbelly of the bleachers was far from an oasis, but it was the canopy I longed for. Apart from the girders interlocking in a geometric zigzag, it was uncluttered, and except for the four-foot cyclone fence surrounding the field, offered an unobstructed view. I wasted little time in loosening my tie and perching myself on a concrete block supporting one of the steel uprights. I had found the one vantage point that afforded me the medicine of solitude and the place where I could dispose myself, without the worry of heat stroke, to the fullness of the day.

The students had been herded to sit together in the middle of the field. I spotted Harris right off, his hair as long and straight as his stature. He looked eager, ready for the likes of Freud, Blake, and Pythagorean theorem. I tried to imagine the magnitude and complexity of his ancestral pool, and the centuries of peasants and paupers, princes and princesses, it took to get him here. He gave me every reason to want to sing his praises. The only way I could have felt prouder was to have been by his side. In concept, I was. It was as though we were, at that very moment, connected, one and the same. I couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were going through his mind, and if I, even remotely, was a part of them. I couldn’t be sure how much of me he carried with him today, because in some unspecific way he was somebody brand new, like someone I was seeing for the first time. I tried to liken him to me and the path I had chosen, but I knew we were too diverse, two separate entities in search of two different worlds.

I watched as he searched the bleachers and a throng of waving arms, trying to find the faces most familiar. But we were too many. His searching reminded me of his years in Little League and the times he stood alone on the pitcher’s mound searching for my face in the stands, for its assurance and approval.

Harris had never given me a satisfactory answer as to why he chose Edenfield. I never thought his choice had anything to do with my having once attended. I didn’t think what I did thirty years ago would be of any consequence, and that my skewed campus legacy would amount to little more than a few laughs for him and his friends. I figured that the accounts of my life during those times would have, if anything, worked to deter him. But it wasn’t until he said, “You know, Dad, I’m looking forward to finding you at Edenfield ... I mean that part you said you left behind,” that I realized my influence, whether I intended it or not, had been substantive, and that his decision had more to do with me than I really wanted.

Above me, applause was sudden and thunderous, echoing through the bleachers with the potency of cannon-fire for someone bedecked in a floral sport coat and edging his way across the speaker’s platform. He was Dr. R. D. Yoglir, Exalted Deacon from The Church’s World Conference and a magnate among God’s chosen. Despite his strong Christian presence, the sun still made no concessions. Dr. Yoglir seemed oblivious to the quiet suffering of his audience and spread his papers with deliberate care on the podium before him. He then surveyed them with a scrunched look and gave the microphone an annoying little knock.

“As we find ourselves,” he began, “at yet another crossroad ...”

The loudspeakers sent R. D.’s greeting well into the surrounding alfalfa fields, and I would guess as far south as Elwin Cotter’s where his moon-eyed quarter horses lazed in the shade of sourwoods. Straight ahead, the crown of the field swelled before me, a formidable reminder of Carol and Cheryl and Bonitasue. The three of them cheerleading on the sidelines. Three gyroscopes: oscillating, pom-pomming, the hems of their skirts higher than their eyes. Only their images were dull now, faded like sepia photos left too long in the sun.

“... we need pause to reevaluate who we’ve become and the influences that have shaped our lives...”
R. D. droned on, decisive and full of purpose, reading word for word what he so painstakingly prepared in what I imagined to have been the cool comfort of an air-conditioned room. I listened, hoping for something new, but then after a time realized his message was like so many others offering the same tired traditions, those of hope and renewal, much like the ones I so often delivered. But I was elsewhere today, unfocused, and before long his message was reduced to only a word here and there, then faded altogether.

For the moment, I returned to Harris, studied him and his assurances of youth. Mine were behind me now, taken up in memories. It was as if time had passed me by without warning, then flooded me with remembrances. For the most part, they were innocent enough, just flashes and glimpses of things I thought were long forgotten. But then there were those that refused to be overlooked, coming like uninvited guests demanding attention. Such was the case today. Only today they were not bits and pieces, but total ensembles. Nothing for me to sift through or decipher. Nothing fragmented or incomplete. Only the purest of images anxious to wash me in recollections. There, beneath the bleachers, they were as clear as day:

June 1:

“Mom.”

“Not now, please. I’m trying to juggle too many things at once here.”

“I just want you to know that I’ve signed up for the Army.”

“Fine. Now take out this trash and make sure the lid is on tight. I’m tired of the squirrels ripping open the bags.”

June 14:

“Well, son, now that you’re about to graduate, have you given any thought to what you’ll be doing?”

Dad was never heady or lofty with his speech, but he did like to think of himself as the consummate authority on anything having to do with making a living. This was not always without its irritability. The fact that we never knew from one minute to the next what posture he might assume or what tack he might take, kept us more than just a little off balance most of our lives. One simply had to stay focused in order to stay in the game.

“You mean after the Army?”

“You know you can’t just lay around and dream.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

“You gotta make some kind of move.”

“I have. I’ve decided to join the Ar-”

“Trade school or college. Anything. You might try junior college like your Cousin A.J. You remember your cousin, A.J., don’t you? Aunt Alice’s son? Down there in Dayton? Hell, he owns his own furniture store now. Drives a Cadillac everywhere he goes. Peaked though. Sickly looking, like he never had a bite of greens. Jesus. Been like that his whole life. No telling what’s wrong with him. No sense in worrying about it, though. Anybody who’s too cheap to go to the doctor when he needs to deserves what he gets. Whole family’s the same way. Got every dime they ever made. God knows we’ll never see any of it.”

“Dad!”

“Listen, maybe you could go to one of them community colleges. Live right here at home. Learn a trade on the side. Matter of fact, Charlie Bevins is looking for a couple of roofers right now. Can pick up some good money roofing. Look at your Uncle Leonard. Roofed all his life. Stronger than a horse. Why I’ve seen him take--”

“DAD!”

“What?”

“I’ll give it some thought … college and all.”

“Yeah, well, Okay. I’m going to bed. One thing for sure though: you can’t just lay around and dream.

You gotta make a move. Oh, and listen, before you turn out the lights, take out the trash. And make sure the lid is on tight. I’m tired of the squirrels ripping open the bags.”

June 25:

Induction day. I was up at four thirty, convinced that this was a day I would want to remember. It was a chance to be alone for a while and prepare myself for what lay ahead, a chance to ponder life and what roles providence and destiny might play. But other than a light-to-medium nosebleed, the morning passed without incident or revelation.

Dawn was like an inevitable messenger. Its pale lemon light bathed everything in a soft patina, including my dad’s sleeping face. I woke him with a nudge. He looked up at me in a stupor, checked the time, and asked in a half-whisper if this was really what I wanted. My heart softened to his words. I was elated that he cared enough to ask but was somehow unable to separate my joy from my sadness. Why had he waited so long to ask? Why, after I had been saying goodbye for nearly a month, had he only now seen fit to offer consolation? Yet I knew this was him and took comfort from his having asked at all.

After dressing slower than usual, and without saying a word, Dad led the way to the car. Once there, we sat in near-perfect silence, staring straight ahead and searching for impossible words before he finally backed us down the driveway and into the street. It was then that Mother, in a nightgown torn under one arm and bleached beyond color, came running at us from across the lawn. She was crying, but through her tears she somehow managed to tell me that Reverend Mayfield was on the phone and was wondering if I had a minute to say goodbye. A phone call from Reverend Mayfield at six o’clock in the morning was a little obvious, but it was so like Mother to know when to sic God on me. It wasn’t her first time, nor was I under the illusion that it would be her last.

Mother had, from the beginning, fashioned me from the blueprints of Levitical law, even though she espoused a discipline quite the opposite for herself. But it never prevented her from calling on the good Reverend Mayfield for support no matter what her need. I think she saw him as necessary, but only in the sense of servitude: something obligatory to his calling. It was Mother’s world and she forever tricked it into being whatever caused her the least amount of pain. Reverend Mayfield was simply someone she used to help arrange it into neat little packages, to give it order and viability, especially the things she knew to be controversial, things certain to affect us in uncommon ways.
For Mother, the idea of my going off to the Army had been an act hefty and indignant, a precursor to what she saw as her diminishing control. The whole idea had flown in the face of what she intended for me and left her with no way to reinstate her will except to call upon Reverend Mayfield who, in turn, would call upon Jesus. It was Jesus who held the deciding vote, and there was no one better at wrenching it free than Mother. It was intervention of the highest order, what one did to restore and stabilize right and fitting dominion.

I was forever amazed at Reverend Mayfield’s obligatory posture toward Mother, his compliance to her every whim. He was no better at saying, “No,” to her than the rest of us. But to hear Mother tell it, he was holder of the keys and gatekeeper to the kingdom of heaven; the unrivaled staple and definitive connection to what God was speaking to our hearts. It was in this vein that she inserted her will, blended it with his religionism as things sanctioned by God. And although Reverend Mayfield’s intervention and instruction had brought me back into the fold time and again, back to where he insisted God wanted me to be, I was never quite able to surrender fully to it, knowing that it was most likely Mother, not God, doing the wanting.

Mother had her own ideas about the stuff of religion, nearly all of which was wrapped around the rudiments of salvation and what it took to lay claim to it: mostly the unquestioning acquiescence to the messages she claimed to receive from Almighty God Himself; messages numerous and many layered, and, over time, what she hung on me as armor, things not to be removed or even maneuvered without the threat of being sucked down a rat hole straight into the jaws of hell.

The irony to Mother’s willfulness was that it became a tie that kept me anchored, but never one that afforded sanctuary from the things that hounded and tempted and brought me, time and again, to the edge of my own abyss: to things beyond God and His waters of veneration. And though she made me believe that there would one day be a reckoning for things done beyond God’s moral code and the conventions of religious certainty, I was somehow wont to do otherwise, to bring opposites to the mix. Ballast to my compunction was all I ever sought, hope and a breath of air beyond the suffocating stigma of what she embraced as sin. And though I understood Mother as the ultimate manipulative process, I grew to where I felt a sense of obligation to the things she laid claim to, things she coaxed and wheedled out of God and the likes of Reverend Mayfield.
Dad sat motionless behind the wheel, a combination of confusion and sorrow. Neither he nor Mother was ready for this. It had all been too sudden. A month hadn’t been long enough to accept that I was serious about leaving.

Mother wiped her nose with one hand and swabbed the tears from her eyes with the other. “You can’t keep Reverend Mayfield waiting,” she insisted. Dad’s eyes were locked on me. There was something eternal in them, something that pleaded with me to at least talk with Reverend Mayfield. It was a look I couldn’t fight.

The minute spent on the phone with Reverend Mayfield was all the time he needed to convey that leaving without first stopping by the parsonage for a word of prayer would be like placing myself in jeopardy of reprisal from the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t sure if this was intended as a witticism, but since humor was not one of his strong suits, though it never deterred him from trying, I took it as a fundamental cautioning. I imagined being placed on the same sin-level as Freddie Heartland if I failed to comply. Freddie was my lifelong friend who lived in the huge two-story bungalow across the street before he moved across town. It was about the eighth grade when Freddie started dipping into the Sunday School collection plate each week. He called it “taking tithing.” In with a quarter, out with a dollar. It wasn’t long before Mrs. Forsythe, the Sunday school teacher, asked him, very Christian-like and in private, if he had taken money from the collection plate. He assured her that he had, but that he was only making change since his tithing came out of his allowance. She was both relieved and rewarded, certain that she had been blessed for having asked. She was openly inspired and told Freddie that she thought tithing from one’s allowance was not only a consecrated act, but a marvelous example of Christian training. She concluded by apologizing and even asked that he forgive her for thinking so reprehensibly. It was a done deal. From that point on Freddie could easily count on the collection plate to double and even triple his weekly allowance. The amazing thing was that his exchange no longer had to be done by sleight of hand. It was done in plain sight and always under Mrs. Forsythe’s approving smile. Freddie never missed receiving an award for perfect attendance.

I let Reverend Mayfield know that I was pressed for time but could meet with him if I left before my next breath.

“You know, Weldon,” he said, “we have to be forever on guard because there are still levels of sin we know nothing about. Take locusts for example.”

“Locusts?” I said.

“Yes. And your leaving without stopping by for a word of prayer could just very well be the first stage of a path strewn with locusts. I’m sure I don’t have to explain myself.”
His talking in parables was a thing most irritating, and I told him how frightening I thought it was, locusts and all, and that I was on my way to see him that very minute.

“What you have to keep in mind,” he began again, “is that the Army cares little, if anything, about your spiritual wellbeing.” I told him I couldn’t agree more, and that I was coming right over.

“And there’s no reason whatsoever why they can’t wait while we share a word of prayer.”

“Right!” I said. “I’m on my way.”

“After all,” he pointed out, “I’m commissioned by a higher authority. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to argue the point.”

I remember handing the phone to Mother, who by then was sitting next to me at the kitchen counter and sniffling into a paper towel. I heard her tell him that I was already halfway out the door.

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