FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 58
The red bird perched on the rock, its heart throbbing, captured the moment, as Corrina and I sat talking by the creek until the shadows fell over the water. I don’t think the bird’s heart was the only one throbbing that magical evening.
But there are different kinds of throbbing heartbeats, I soon learned. Mine revved up like the engines at the Indy 500 the very next morning. We had let the time get away soaking in life out by the creek, and I walked her up to her front porch an hour later than her curfew. Corrina and I had swung by the store at the Rock Mills crossroad so she could give her mama a quick call since we were running late. We then realized that we hadn’t had supper, so we grabbed a Nehi-Grape and a Nutty Buddy for the road, then hurried on to Roanoke.
By the time I got back home, it was pushing 11 p.m., Georgia time. I checked in on Mama, who was sleeping soundly, for which I was glad. I showered and got to bed as soon as possible, but my mind was racing too much for me to drift off to sleep quickly.
Anyone who has ever been sixteen – almost seventeen – and has experienced the excitement of life and love with all of their ups and downs can relate to how elusive sleep can be on such warm Georgia summer nights.
Eventually, my sore and tired muscles overwhelmed my excitable mind, and I faded off to sleep. The world was good that night, the dreams were sweet, and our red bird sang its little heart out on that creek rock for a good bit of the night.
The sweet dreams were interrupted abruptly by the sun shining through my window, which was not the way to wake up on a work morning.
I jumped up, looking at my alarm clock in one motion, and saw that it was eight a.m., the exact moment the job started over in Alabama, only it was seven a.m. there. The ugly thought of driving up that long red dirt drive at least half an hour late was about the worst first thought of a morning I could remember; only there were others I knew I had hidden away even from myself. I threw on my jeans and work boots in less than a minute and was out the door, nothing laced, buttoned, or zipped.
The red Nova and I bounded the hill half an hour later, bringing the big house on the hill into clear view. Thirty minutes late is no better than two hours, and the prospect of what was about to unravel up that hill that morning caused my heart to race again.
When I bounded the hill and saw the black Studebaker sitting in front of the house, it skipped a beat, maybe the first time a human heart had ever skipped a beat and raced at the same time without stopping.
The stopping part would come as soon as I came face to face with Red.
That morning also may have been the first time in my short life history that I was glad not to see Corrina when I jumped out of the red Nova, buttoning my shirt and trying to get it tucked in before rounding the corner to the side of the house.
Mr. McClain was in the back of the house talking to Red, both pointing up to where the chimney was going up. We had started the chimney the day before and were only about six feet up. Pee Wee and Charlie stood on the scaffold with their trowels in their hands, listening to the conversation.
I gathered that the opening of the roof where the brick would go up may have been a little offline.
The roofline problem was small compared to what a young Georgia boy was about to face.
As I rounded the back corner of the house, all eyes shifted from the roof line to the half-put-together late-arrival. Pee Wee tried to rescue me as best he could with a “Doocy, is that your boy rounding that corner there, or is the morning sun getting in my eyes?”
And Doocy followed suit with, “Oh, thet’ll be him awright, thet’s him in t’flesh, Pee Wee. I knowed good and well my Puppy would be comin’, I knowed it as good as I knows myself.”
Willum was on the ground stacking brick up on the scaffold, so I ignored Pee Wee and Doocy – although I was thankful for the veiled attempts to save my hide – and I went straight to help him without a word. But I wouldn’t get off that easy. I had just grabbed a handful of brick when Red spoke.
“Where you been, boy?”
I stepped back from the scaffold and looked at him. At that moment, my eyes also met Mr. McClain’s, and I couldn’t tell whether they were friendly eyes or hostile. Regardless, there was no time to deliberate. I managed to squeak out a weak, “Sorry, Red, I… I slept late.”
“Is that all you got, Pup? You come waltzin’ in on the job near ‘bout lunchtime, and ya slept late, that’s it.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“You didn’t mean to waltz in like you own the place or somethin’, and you didn’t mean to make Willum and Doocy do their work and yours, too. Huh?”
Before I could answer, he added, “The next thing you know, you’re goin’ t’tell me you didn’t mean to brang Mr. McClain’s baby girl home an hour late last night.”
I froze.
I’ve found, through the years, that a person never chooses to freeze. It’s just what a body does when the brain doesn’t send any other signal to their limbs. Freezing was the best option in that moment. I didn’t dare glance over at Doocy, or Red, or, for sure, my dark-haired girlfriend’s daddy. Yes, I determined, freezing like a snowman in the middle of July was the best option. What I didn’t know at the time – and learned later only because of Doocy, was that Red was worried about me and was afraid something had happened, and Mr. McClain just reassured him that it was probably because Cori Leigh and I got home late.
Of course, Red wouldn’t have told me that in 12-million years, not when he had a primetime opportunity to give me the best tongue-lashing that money can buy. By the time he finished his hellfire and brimstone sermon, you would’ve thought he was Billy Sunday himself. I say Billy Sunday because that was what my tenth-grade shop teacher, Mr. Walsh called me daily.
However, Billy Sunday never left an audience chewed up into little bitty pieces the way Red did. But what he did that any preacher would do is he let his sermon go on for a long while. And like Billy Sunday, Red could make a sinner squirm, and the coals got hotter with every word. I was never as glad to hear a preacher bring a sermon to a close as when Red, mercifully, said, “Quit jus’ standin’ there and go help Doocy make that mud.”
Doocy jumped to my rescue again, immediately grabbing an empty wheelbarrow and saying, “I got ‘im, bossman, I got ‘im, don’t cha worry none ‘bout my Pup, the Cool Breeze will take care of everythin’.”
Then he looked over his shoulder toward Mr. McClain, and said emphatically, “Mr. McClain, the Breeze will have a li’l talk with t’Pups heah about this.”
Without a transition, he turned to me, “Come on Pups, I cain’t believe whut you done,” then, under his breath, growled, “Pup, don’t cha look er-round at nuttin’, keep ya headlights straight on…”
Not much else was said about the situation until lunchtime – that chimney occupied everybody’s attention all morning – but we had no more than sat down on the paint buckets in the living room area when Willum, always the instigator, said, “Pee Wee, yuh don’t reckon the Pup took that girl up on Lookout Hill and showed her all them stars last night, do ya?”
“I know what you’re saying,” Pee Wee said, “but you know the Pup comes from a good family, his granddaddy’s a preacher, and he’s got the best mama around…”
“But he is Squatlow’s li’l brother, Pee Wee,” Willum replied, “that cain’t be no good thing.”
Their little small talk switched back and forth between what a good family I had and how much of a renegade “thet Squatlow was” until Doocy came around the corner carrying his sack lunch with sardines and soda crackers, and, in pure Doocy style, singing at the top of his lungs to the tune of the Spinners’ song that had just come on the radio plugged in inside the living room, “Since I met you, I’ve begun to feel so strange. Every time I speak your name…” Doocy sang with spirit, and by the time he sat down on his bucket to eat, he and the Spinners had made it to the chorus, “Could it be I’m fallin’ in love, with you baby, could it be I’m falling in love, Woo…”
Pee Wee looked at me and grinned. I knew then that all was back to normal again, even if our normal on the job was “abby-normal,” as Igor says in the classic “Young Frankenstein.” I had to smile at the thought that it was very unlikely that even Igor knew abnormal the way I got to know it that summer. Doocy sang on as he opened his sardines, hitting every other word right from the Spinners, and when he got back to the “Could it be I’m fallin’ in love” part, he cut his eyes toward me with the whites showing then turned to Pee Wee and offered him his big smile that showed off every one of his missing teeth.
Nothing like a mis-sung song and a smile from a fella with all a mouthful of missing teeth to restore things back to normal – ever what that was.
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.