New Heart Church by Jim Barringer
Chapter Six
Either I had been tired the night before and forgotten to set an alarm, or I had turned it off without remembering. Whichever it was, I didn’t end wake up until almost noon, angry at myself for wasting the day, ignoring the fact that whatever I would have been doing probably was not too much more productive than sleeping.
I really wished that God would hurry up and give me a job, not just because of the money issue, but just so that I would have something to do. Crazy and interesting things always seemed to come up and fill my time, but I still felt a bit aimless. I wanted to believe that God knew what he was doing – reading Psalms had given me a pretty strong impression that he did – but I still wondered somewhere in the back of my head if the problem was me.
I took my time getting ready and was almost finished shaving when someone knocked on my door. “It’s open,” I called over the buzz of the electric razor.
Somehow Stanley heard me and pushed his way into the room. “Afternoon, Eli. Want to come take a walk with me?”
I finished shaving, toweled the hair off my face, and stuck my head out of the bathroom. “Sounds great. Where are we heading?”
“Just around downtown. Got some friends I want to catch up with, and I figure you could use a little fresh air.”
“I figure you’re right. Let’s get rolling.”
I still hadn’t gotten over how incredible it was to be outside, walking around comfortably, in December. This had not been the case back home.
That thought gave me pause; why did I still refer to Indiana as home? I didn’t have very many friends there, I hadn’t liked it when I lived there, and I never planned on living there again. It made no sense for me, some distant part of me, to think of it as home at all. Yet I still did.
“Stanley,” I asked, as we walked east toward downtown, “do you ever think about any of the places you used to live, and still think of them as home?” I had no idea why I’d asked him. Normally I left my internal monologue on the inside where it belonged.
But Stanley cocked his head, a thoughtful frown on his face. “That’s a good question, Eli. I’ve lived a couple different places and I have pretty good memories of most of them. Can’t say I’ve ever thought of any of them as home the way I think of Fort Worth. And it’s not even the city of Fort Worth, so much, as just the people and the relationships I have here, you know? If you all moved out, I’m not sure I would think of this city, or even my apartment, as home anymore.”
“You all? You make it sound like I’m one of the people who makes this place attractive to you.”
“Well, of course you are, Eli.” He smiled, teeth even whiter in his dark face. “You cause me some headaches sometimes, but I love you and I think the building would be worse off if you weren’t a part of it.” I was silent for a moment, and Stanley laughed. “I know you have no idea how to respond to that statement so don’t bother trying.”
“Thanks,” I said, relieved, and then attempted to change the topic. “Where all have you lived?”
“Ah, I was born in Pittsburgh, lived there for a while. When I was a teenager we moved to New Jersey, then after that I bounced around a bit, and ended up here about fifteen years ago. Didn’t really have any special reason for choosing Fort Worth or that building, just knew a guy who got me a job working construction, so I did that for a while.”
“When did you live in New York?”
He looked over at me very quickly. “New York?”
“Yeah. You told me the night of the cookout that you learned how to make that one kind of steak in New York.”
“Right. Well, I don’t think of New York as home, I’ll tell you that.”
It was a remarkably evasive answer from Stanley, who was usually such a straight shooter, and it caught me so off guard that I didn’t know whether to follow up or not. In the end, I didn’t. “So what do you do for a living nowadays?”
“I did construction and construction management for a long time until two years ago, when my mom died. She had a huge life insurance policy, and my brother, my sister, and I made out like bandits. I don’t have to work anymore, which is why I spend all day helping people however I can.”
“Well, that’s cool, but what a terrible way to come into money.”
“I’d rather have mom around, I’ll tell you that honestly.” He looked up at the skyscrapers, which we were almost underneath. I could tell he was seeing something in his mind’s eye, remembering a woman he obviously cherished.
His answer meant something for me, though, that simply being unemployed didn’t have to mean being idle. Maybe I could talk to him about that sometime, about doing something worthwhile in the meantime while I was waiting on God.
I still wanted to ask about the New York bit, but before I knew it he was knocking on the front door of a row house in the shadow of downtown. An older black woman answered. “Well hello there, Stanley Raines. Who’s your friend? Come on in,” she added without waiting for a response, “I’ve got some brownies in the oven for you.”
We spent the next hour and a half talking with this woman, Stella, about a little bit of everything. I hadn’t asked before the visit who she was, and only as we were leaving her house did I say anything to Stanley.
“Just a woman from around town,” he shrugged. “Her relatives all moved away and she gets a little lonely there all by herself. Why was she baking a full pan of brownies if she’s the only one who lives in the house? Cause she’s dying for someone to stop by, that’s why.”
I hadn’t thought of that. “Jarrius usually comes with me,” Stanley continued, “but he’s busy today. I try to keep someone with me just so it’s not me and some woman alone in a house. Don’t want to give anyone a reason to talk.”
“That’s smart, I guess.”
“You and I should go fishing tonight.”
I looked at Stanley, sure that I had mis-heard him; there was no way he had changed the topic so suddenly. But he kept walking; we were moving between the skyscrapers now, and he didn’t give the slightest hint that he had said anything unusual.
“Did you say fishing?”
“I said that you and I should go fishing tonight. Catfishing, specifically. There’s some big old fish at the bottom of Lake Worth.”
“Well, alright. I don’t think I’ve ever been fishing before.”
“First time for everything.” Stanley grinned. “Here’s our next stop.”
We spent the next couple of hours visiting people downtown – men, women, couples, families. I wondered how Stanley had met them all, how he found time to build so many friendships. Maybe that’s just what happened when a natural extrovert got plunked in the middle of a big city.
Walking back to the apartment later, I heard my stomach growl, and realized belatedly that I hadn’t eaten anything all day, except for a few of Stella’s brownies. Stanley overheard and raised his eyebrow. “Guess we did forget lunch, didn’t we. Sorry about that, son. I get carried away sometimes.”
“No worries. We can get something to take with us, some sandwiches or something.”
“I won’t hear of it. Come up to my room and I’ll make you something before we go.”
I didn’t protest. Three flights of stairs later, I was sitting at Stanley’s table and watching him grill up some meat on the stove.
“So, Eli,” he said, “tell me about your parents.”
I paused for a few seconds, wondering where to start. “That’s a complicated thing to do.”
“Start somewhere. Are you an only child?”
“Yeah. Parents work in a tomato canning plant. I’m the first one in the family to go to college. I wanted to move back home after I graduated, but they wouldn’t let me, which is why I ended up here.”
“Why wouldn’t they let you?”
I shrugged. “You want their answer or mine?”
“I want the answer.”
“Okay. They said it was because they didn’t want me living at home forever, eating their food and taking up space in their house. I think they’re bitter that I got educated. I mean, I am smarter than them. Don’t take that the wrong way, but it’s true. They don’t know how to manage their money; they took hundreds of dollars from my bank account just last week because they wanted a new lawn tractor. It takes thirty minutes to mow our lawn with a push mower and they need a lawn tractor for some reason. I didn’t talk to them much while I was in college and I’ve only talked to them twice since moving down here. Both times they called me. The first time was mom telling me they plundered my savings, and the second was dad asking if he had to buy me anything for Christmas.”
Stanley was staring at me, ignoring the meat sizzling insistently in the pan. “That’s heavy stuff.”
“I dunno. I guess. I’m supposed to go visit them over Christmas. But I don’t want to. There’s nothing there.”
“Wow. I want to talk about this some more tonight while we’re fishing. I need a while to put my thoughts together first.”
“Fine.” I was a bit surprised that I wasn’t feeling apprehensive or reluctant about such a conversation. It was very strange how in the past I had stubbornly resisted any attempt by Stanley or the others to probe my heart, but now I felt no resistance. Actually, I almost felt the opposite, an invitation, as if the conversation was going to be important to me somehow. It was odd, but I could run with it.
It shouldn’t have surprised me that Stanley’s impromptu meal was unbelievably good. The man had a way with food; that was for sure. I was amused at the way so many of the important conversations I’d had with people had come over food – that first dinner at Stanley’s place, the cookout where I met Abbie, my recent meal with Abbie at Whataburger, that time Stanley and I had gone for breakfast and then watched the planes land, and now this.
Stanley ate faster than I did, and disappeared into his hall closet to pull out a couple of fishing rods and a giant tackle box. I could see through the window in his kitchen that the sun was just about setting as he grabbed my empty plate, dumped it in the sink, and shepherded me out the door.