FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 54
I could tell Mama was getting tired; so, I eased up from the rocker where I had been resting my eyes and reluctantly interrupted her story.
Before we left, Corrina told Mama she wanted to hear more about her love story. “Miss Louise,” she said, in her soft Southern accent, “your story is one of the most beautiful love stories I’ve ever heard. You rest up, I’m looking so forward to hearing the rest.”
I wouldn’t have expected any less grace from young Corrina than what I saw there. That’s the way she was. She helped me get Mama back to bed, we both hugged her, and I told her I’d be home a little later, not to worry.
Mama seemed satisfied; I suppose because she could tell I was in good hands. I knew that Mama’s pulling Corrina in to talk to her at first was as much about getting to know “who I was hanging around with” as much as anything. I knew how Mama was. I think she may have misjudged that fly ball a little, as we say, and had no idea that her relationship with the young girl was going to go much deeper.
Already Mama and Corrina were making their own plans. Corrina told her that she could come by maybe on Tuesday, “if that’s okay,” she said, glancing at me. Mama agreed, of course, and I didn’t object, just as I’ve never objected to, say, being offered a banana split. All of a sudden, I was being blessed with a whole new assortment of dates I never expected, so that definitely was life with a cherry on top.
Corrina and I went into the kitchen and shared one of Grandma’s homemade apple turnovers before heading home. No sooner had we closed the car door to my sweet red Nova that Corrina turned sideways in the seat, and, in what was a stern voice for her, said, “You almost drowned, Billy Ray! What happened?”
I already knew that response was coming and that we’d be talking about it on the dark drive home to Roanoke. I brushed it off for a while with a “Oh, it was nothin’,” then adding, “but since I know you’re not goin’ to let me off the hook that easy, we’d better stop and eat before I tell you. I don’t want it to ruin your appetite.”
She smiled, so I knew that would hold her for a spell. We turned onto Juniper Street, drove out by Callaway Stadium and the Y, the arena for most all of my growing-up heroics, then out to the West Point Road. I wanted to take her to famous Charlie Joseph’s and get us a slaw dog and a Coca-Cola before hitting the Roanoke Road. Eating at Charlie Joseph’s, that had been in LaGrange for fifty years, I guess, I thought of how much history this night had covered. I knew, too, there was more to come.
Soon we found ourselves headed to the Roanoke Road. As we weaved our way back through the country to get to it, we got clear images of the evening sky, the sunset winking at us out from behind the tall pines in spots.
We had an open view of it by the time we got to the highway. Corrina marveled at how pretty the sky, describing it with her hands by showing me its intricate blend of colors in different parts of the sky, stretched out that evening like a scroll from end to end. It was as if the Lord had placed one hook at the edge of the north and another at the edge of the south and then stretched the portrait out tight across the western sky for the world to admire.
My grandfather preached often from a passage in the Old Testament – from the fortieth chapter of Isaiah – that tells how the Lord stretched out the heavens just like a beautiful curtain. That’s what I thought of as Corrina talked. I thought of the hooks at both ends, too, but knew, of course, the Lord doesn’t need hooks to stretch out His portraits.
Corrina’s moving her hands as she described the sunset reminded me of an artist’s masterful strokes as he draws this picture right before our eyes. Her enthusiasm over the simple things was something I had come to expect and admire. She was right about its beauty. I could see the sunset better than ever with her color commentary, as she painted with every word the mixture of oranges, blues, and yellows blending together like a Norman Rockwall scene.
By the time we crossed the Alabama line, the colors had all faded and the sun had almost set, off to our left. Corrina had waited until we had turned on the Roanoke Road before she slid back toward the passenger door, turning sideways to face me better, and saying, sassily, “All right, fess up, buddy. What’d you do?”
I liked how her moods could change on a dime, never in a bad way, but like a perfect blend of the colors of her personality. The timing was good because, at that point, I had my mind ready to tell her the Mud Creek story, and I knew it would take us all the way to her Roanoke house.
I was only about eight years old, I began, and I hadn’t learned to swim yet. My cousin Chase had an uncle who would take us out to swim sometimes at Mud Creek. We’d go there pretty often, before we all bought a lot and started going out to Pine Lake up toward Columbus. It wasn’t long after what happened at Mud Creek that Mama and Daddy went in with my Uncle River and Aunt Grace and bought that Pine Lake lot.
At Mud Creek we would swim under a bridge that is not more than half a mile past Ma and Pa’s place. The water was deeper there, especially after a rain. It had come a downpour the night before, so it was not only deep that day but swift. For a creek, it was wide, like a small river, probably thirty or forty feet across.
We had all swam a good two hours that day and rough-housed the way boys do, and Chase’s Uncle Duck had taken about enough and hollered for everybody to get out, then he went up on the bridge to smoke.
Duck had been in the Navy, so he had picked up smoking as well as bossing; and he had a tattoo on his arm, which was one of the first people that I knew that had one. I knew he had one, but when he took his shirt off to swim I saw that it had the word “Mama” tattooed in a half circle over an image of the globe. I figured the tattoo meant that his mama was his whole world, something I could see.
Duck’s sister Viv married Mama’s brother Dallas, so he was all but in the family. He and his family were fairly regular churchgoers, too, so we knew them all well.
When Duck spoke, we boys usually snapped at his commands quickly. That day was no exception for all my cousins. They were out of the water in a flash and were drying off and getting ready to pile into Duck’s car, but I decided to take one more dive and swim across the creek. I say ‘swim,’ but I still wasn’t able to swim at that time, just dog paddle.
I dived in, and I don’t know exactly what happened. I had been diving in and swimming across that creek all morning; but somehow the current caught me just right, I guess. Or maybe I was tired after a couple of hours of wrestling and swimming and didn’t have the strength I had before.
“The only thing I remember, Corrina,” I said with a bit of a sigh, “is suddenly bein’ underwater, almost as if I were standin’ up but not touchin’ bottom, and all I saw was yellow water, because the sun was shinin’ down and reflectin’ off the water. I struggled to get away from the current, but it was like I was stuck in concrete.”
“Oh my, I bet you were scared, Billy Ray,” Corrina said, reaching over and putting her hand on my shoulder, the concern in her tone and in her touch as if it all happened yesterday and she realized suddenly we would never have had these moments had things turned out differently.
Those moments had been growing on the both of us for a week or two by that time, and it was a feeling, mostly unspoken, that filled the air every time we were together. Something was happening, and we didn’t know exactly what that something was. That is the beauty of being sixteen going on seventeen. It’s a youthful spirit you hope never to lose, and, if you’re very blessed, you hold onto a good part of that spirit for all your life.
“Corrina,” I went on, “I really wasn’t scared, and that’s amazin’. I’ve been scared many times before and many times since – including about every single day with Doocy and Red and that rough ol’ chain gang on the job at ya’ll’s new house – but that day, I wasn’t. I remember its bein’ one of the most peaceful moments of my life. Funny, isn’t it, how that happens. I didn’t notice that I wasn’t breathing, and I didn’t hurt anywhere, not even my chest or lungs. If somebody hadn’t jumped in after me, I think I would have drifted off to sleep and, next thing, found myself steppin’ out onto heaven’s shore with a multitude of angels.”
I paused to let it all sink in. I glanced out of the side window toward the western sky and saw that the last of the colors of the sunset had faded.
Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.
In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.