Changes on the job

Bob was a big guy and nobody liked him. He worked for a trucking company and all the workers in the place couldn’t stand him. He was a loudmouth. He intimidated everybody he came into contact with, and he especially intimidated Frank.

The think Frank had inside of himself about Bob was horrendous. Anger, outrage. Frank didn’t even want to be around Bob. Bob would come in from taking a load and Frank would go to the other side of the terminal to avoid making contact. Or Frank would hurry to get his work done and be out the door just to keep out of Bob’s way.

It wasn’t really just Frank, though. Bob was such a blowhard, there wasn’t a man driving a truck that wouldn’t just as soon Bob went out and never came back. With Frank, the case was more severe, because Frank knew in his heart that the reason he had so much anger toward Bob was because he was afraid of him. Frank was absolutely scared of the man, big, dumb bruiser that he was.

One day, Bob got sick and went to the hospital. The atmosphere at the terminal was decidedly different those days. Suffice it to say, unkind comments were made about Bob being in the hospital, things like good riddance, dressed up with other unsavory vocabulary words.

Frank was glad Bob was out, too; but he still had anger about the man, and he didn’t know what to do about it. The thing about Frank, he had come to a new place in his life, trying to make a few changes, trying to stop living the way he had been living, trying to make some kind of attempt to do what he knew was right in the eyes of God.

Driving home that night, Frank came to a T in the road, and sitting directly across was a card store. Something inside Frank said stop and go in, which he did, and there he found a card to send to Bob. Frank called back to work and got the room number and address of the hospital. He addressed the card right there in the store and bought a stamp from the guy behind the counter because he knew if he didn’t do it now, he wouldn’t do it. Frank signed the get-well card, “Your friend, Frank.”

Immediately outside the card store was a mailbox. The instant he let the card drop in the mailbox, Frank’s anger left him. Just like that.

Seven, eight weeks later, Bob came back to work. The first thing he did was walk up to Frank and stick out his hand. “Thanks,” Bob said. Frank’s was the only card Bob had received from work the whole time he was in the hospital.

Frank did a little investigating after that. He found out Bob had five kids and every one of them was accident-prone. It seemed like one always had something wrong: a broken arm, a broken leg. To top it off, Bob’s wife was a sickly person, along with having emotional problems. The point was that Bob was coming to work every day out of an atmosphere of pressure. He had no easy life.

It was several years later and Frank had a different job by that time, 60 miles away in a different state. He was a used car salesman now. It was a warm day and business at the car lot, which was on a busy highway, was slow. Frank was walking around the lot outside hoping for a customer to come in.

All of a sudden, Frank heard the gasping of air brakes behind him on the highway and the hollow bump, bump, bumping sound of the trailer end of an empty big rig skidding to a short stop. Frank turned and looked up and who should it be but Bob dodging between lanes of moving cars with a smile on his face, waving and hollering, “How ya doing, Frank! Good to see ya, Buddy!”

Bob had stopped his rig in traffic to say hello to his old pal. – T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on December 6th, 1987

Faith in the family room

Jamie was a young man, just 15. He sat in the family room in the back of the house, alone this night as he was frequently in those times. Jamie lived with his Dad and his older brother. His Mom had died about a year before.

What had been a house full of kids and a Mom and Dad in the young fellow’s lifetime had become an empty place. Neighbors didn’t come. Meals were attempted but the effort mostly abandoned. It was empty and quiet.

Jamie had determined this night to be honest with himself once and for all. He would decide what he truly believed. It was a young man’s way of dealing with things. So much had happened so soon, but he could not say that then; he could not be wise and knowing about the meaning of his experiences.

Taking a pen and paper, Jamie wrote, “I believe in God.” He pondered the statement, questioning himself rigorously if he sincerely believed what he had written.

Dad had gone out, probably to the Elks. Dad was pretty lonely since Mom had died and Jamie didn’t begrudge his Dad’s need for companionship and relaxation. Jamie loved his Dad, but he couldn’t articulate the numbness in his own spirit. Did he believe anything anymore, anything at all?

Brother was out, too. It wasn’t long ago they had fought, Jamie and his brother. It was a real fight, one with wrestling and temper. Brother told Jamie he’d better start helping around the house, but Jamie wasn’t going to do that. He didn’t care about the damn house. You’re going to care, brother said, and whacked his sibling with the kitchen towel. Jamie grabbed the towel to wrest it away, but found it tight in his brother’s grip. They wrestled with it tensely to the floor.

Jamie’s eyes streamed with tears and anger and a hollowness he himself could not understand. From his center he cried: “I don’t care!” “You’ll start caring!” brother rejoined. And so it went until they both lost their energy, lying side by side, weeping, weeping, anguishing about a power guiding their lives to such an emptiness.

Jamie hated. He didn’t know why, he just hated. Jamie hated Dad, and loved him. Jamie hated God, and loved him. He could not see that his hate was anger, and that his anger covered up his hurt. Love was in him, but it seemed to him to be a painful contradiction.

The boy thought of the fight with his brother as he peered at the words, “I believe in God.” Quickly, there was a shuffling at the back door, and the quiet was broken by the sound of people entering. Immediately the air was pungent with a strange perfume. Jamie’s father, and a woman he had never met, entered the room. “Oh what a pretty boy!” the woman exclaimed.

After pleasantries and a short visit, Dad and his date left and quiet returned. The smell of perfume lingered in the air as Jamie resumed his thoughts, feeling the urgency of deciding what he truly believed, feeling deep longing for the basic, the absolute, the unequivocal. There was indeed something solid about “I believe in God.”

Against all expectation, Dad was home again soon, surprising Jamie in his exercise of discovering the substance of his faith.

Dad sat in the family room. “What you up to, son?” he asked.

Jamie said, “I’m trying to decide what I truly believe, Dad. I’ve begun by saying I believe in God,” feeling the urge to engage his father in discussing this pursuit.

His Dad nodded vacantly. He said, “Did you like that lady I brought by tonight?”

“She seemed like a nice lady.”

“Well, she might be your new momma.”

“Really? Gee, Dad, that’s great.”

Outside, the young man expressed happiness for his Dad. Inside, he retreated in fearful confusion. Barriers and walls went up that imprisoned the emptiness he could not understand. He stopped trying to decide what he truly believed. He began trying instead to repel the pain of the certainty of his doubt. –T.R.

written by Thomas A. Russell
first published in the Lafayette Sunday Visitor on December 6th, 1987