Concussed

By C. T. Turnage

“Sometime life just be’s that way.”

Mal leaned against the doorframe of her Victorian restoration project home looking at her brother sitting there on the edge of the porch with his feet dangling like a young kid. “How long’s it been?” she asked herself. “How long has he been sitting out there not saying a word? Will he ever be Emery again?”

Something happened to Emery three years back on his trip to Washington D. C. after graduation. Since he returned, he just sat out there watching down the gravel drive as if expecting someone to come walking up it. He never said a word. He just sat there with his feet dangling and his hands in his lap like a fixture. He could have been a lawn jockey or a chair or anything else. He just sat and stared down the drive all day from dawn till dusk. Then, he got up and went to his bedroom to wait until the next day.

Once a bird landed on him and pooped down the front of his shirt. He never moved.

Mal wondered if life would every be any different or if it would always be the same. Would she always leave for work with Emery sitting on the front porch? Would she always return with him sitting there? She thought about praying so that if God was out there somewhere maybe He could help her if he even cared.

Mal sighed.

It was one of those hopeless sighs that told of all the empty dreams from high school that never panned out because circumstances changed or people beat on you until you finally conceded and began acting like a responsible adult instead of pursuing the things you really wanted to. Her heart ached wondering whether some tomorrow down the road would ever be better or if she was eternally going to drudge away at an endless chain of todays. Scratching her side, she turned around to check the news and see how someone else’s today had changed. “Even tragedies might give life flavor,” she thought despondently. Then she wondered if Emery had any idea about his todays or if they were a constant collection of brand new “nows”.

A few minutes later, just as one of the talking heads shared the story of a tragic plane crash with one of those polite smiles they always wear underneath their powdered faces and starched hair, she heard a voice outside. She got up to see who it was.

Mal saw a nice looking gentleman in a sports coat and silk, pattern tie talking to Emery. The tie had a tessellation pattern of different colored crosses on it. Mal thought it was an attractive design as she stood back watching the one-sided conversation continue for a minute or two longer.

“He’s not going to talk to you,” she said flatly.

The startled gentleman with the dark hair and cheap jacket that may have come from a second hand store jumped. He looked toward the door for the first time since she arrived. When he did his eyes seemed to dance with delight at the prospect of having someone to talk with. “Why not?” Looking down at Emery he asked, “Don’t you like preachers?”

Mal smirked. “I don’t know about preachers, but he doesn’t like anybody enough to talk to them. He hasn’t said a word in three years. He just sits there like a bump. The only thing he’s good for is eating groceries.”

The preacher raised his eyebrows, but acted like none of it really registered. He continued addressing the bump, “What’s your name or do I just call you Bump.”

Mal threw the door open, charging the stranger. “That’s not funny, mister!” she screamed. “You get out of here! You get out of here right now!”

Only then did the man look her direction with any sense of meaning. “Yes, ma’am, but can I pray with you before I go.”

“No!”

The preacher smiled at her and Emery both before wishing them a good evening. He walked back up the drive without a complaint.

Mal stood on the front porch, with her hands on her hips and her feet planted shoulder width apart like in an old western as if she was getting ready for a showdown at high noon, stewing until he reached the road. Then, she began to walk back and forth behind Emery mouthing about the man’s unmitigated gall and his atrocious and insulting behavior. She wondered how he could dare make fun of someone in Emery’s condition. What kind of church would hire a preacher like that? For the next hour Mal rattled the hardwood slats of her front porch with her stomping as her complaints bellowed out into the open air. She finally calmed down enough to go back inside and get ready for the next day.

When Mal arrived home from work she saw the preacher sitting on the porch next to Emery; neither one speaking. He just sat there with his hands in his lap staring down the gravel drive the way her brother did. She pulled her little hybrid into the garage and stomped angrily around to give him a good what for. Before she could say anything, the man spoke.

“I’m sorry for the way things happened yesterday. I didn’t mean to show any disrespect. I’ve already apologized to him,” he said motioning toward Emery with his head. “I’m the new pastor at the little

Baptist church down the road there and I was just out trying to meet the people in the neighborhood. I never meant to offend you. I just feel like it’s appropriate to speak to people, not around them.”

Mal, still incensed over the previous events was in a less than forgiving mood. She snarled at the man. “If you’re trying to get me to come to your church by apologizing it’s not going to work. I don’t like you and I don’t want to see you again.”

The gentleman bowed his head. “Fair enough ma’am. Can I ask your name?”

Mal huffed. Something about the preacher’s persistence pleased her. At least it made today different than yesterday. At least he showed some kind of moxie rather than being the wishy-washy religionist she had come to expect. “Fine. I’m Mal Peterson and that’s my brother, Emery.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Peterson,” the preacher said as he turned to walk away without further comment.

Mal was strangely disappointed. Her heart felt cold and empty then. She had expected, for some reason, him to at least offer to pray with her, but he just turned and walked off instead. How could he do that? So what if she told him to leave and never come back. What happened to the moxie she had just seen? Who was this guy and what was it about him that was driving her so crazy?

This was a different kind of crazy. Unlike the crazy of the guy in a club who gives you one of those decadent compliments like “You’re hot enough to almost make that dress work”, this man left her with some new, odd feelings. There was emptiness and yet a new aliveness in her. She wondered how he had done this. What was it about him that in those two short, hostile visits, at least hostile on her part, that gave her hope that something was going to be different soon?

This time she watched him walk up the driveway, but not with the same fury as the day before. This time she was filled with angst; angst that gnawed at her in the pit of her stomach for fear he might actually not return and leave her in the same miserable today she had been in for the past three years of todays rather than bring her the hope she needed. She almost considered the idea of chasing after him and telling him she changed her mind, but she shoved the idea back in its place as it tried to surface. Her way was to keep to herself and handle things on her own.

Each day for the next three weeks Mal arrived home ruing her decision. She quietly hoped to see the preacher sitting there next to Emery, but the spot seemed so hauntingly void as she pulled up to the house that she almost wept. Each evening she wondered if she might call the church and ask him to come back to visit, but she never could make the call. A few times she held the phone in her hand. Twice she looked the number up. On several occasion she drove by the little white, wood frame church that looked like it came off a Hallmark card on her way home, which was actually out of her way, but she wanted to do it. One night she almost prayed God, if He was out there and cared at all, would send the man back by, but she had already told Him what she wanted and maybe it was too late. Mal went through her evening ritual of giving Emery a sandwich before sitting down at the table to eat dinner alone. Then, she retrieved his plate and did the dishes and went back to lean on the door for a few minutes to mourn her life before going to watch how somebody else’s today was changed.

One evening, just as she began wondering again about how the talking heads could smile as they told the world about such terrible things, probably because of those fat paychecks they were collecting, a knock at the door startled her. She went to answer it wondering who on earth it could be.

“Hello, Mal.”

It was the preacher from the little Baptist church.

Mal smiled. Teasingly she said with a smirk, “I thought I told you not to come back.”

“Okay,” he said turning to leave.

She stopped him. “No, it’s okay come on in.”

The man brought his young wife with him. After introductions they sat down to talk for a few minutes. Once they women got going on about how frustrating he could be sometimes, the preacher politely excused himself and went outside to sit on the porch. There was no telling how long the visit took place at the house. Mal and Vickie, the preacher’s wife, talked until after nine that evening.

The preacher sat on the porch next to Emery silently just staring down the drive with him. Once, he took out a packet of gum and laid a piece in Emery’s lap. Emery failed to respond, but when dusk came, he continued to sit there rather than get up as he usually did. In fact, he sat there until Mal brought Vickie to the door and said goodbye. Once the preacher and his wife walked out to the end of the gravel drive, only when their feet finally hit the asphalt pavement, he took the gum in his hand and got up off the porch to go inside.

Mal watched. She thought she might cry.

It was another couple of weeks before the preacher and Vickie returned. When they did, Vickie brought one of her homemade chocolate pies. Mal ate some and offered a slice to Emery who just let it sit on the porch between him and the preacher.

After a while of watching it melt, the preacher asked, “Are going to eat that?” When Emery failed to respond, he picked it up and took a big bite. “I think that’s her best chocolate pie yet. You’re going to have to try a piece.” Late in the evening the couple walked down the gravel drive. Only when their feet hit the pavement did Emery get up to go inside.

Mal wanted to do something. She watched Emery and she wanted to do something because she felt he was getting better. For the first time in over three years he had changed, even though the changes were so slight; only a piece of gum and staying outside later. That night she tried the best she could to say a prayer, to thank God for what he did even though she unsure how. That night she wanted Him to know that she knew her today was better in some indescribable, incalculable way.

She got down beside her bed feeling silly, like a child, and said the only thing she could thing of to say; “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Oh, and thanks. Amen”

Mal felt stupid. She thought God was probably up there with the angels laughing at her and her silly prayer, but she wanted to tell Him thank you and nobody had ever taught her how. She simply did the best she could to stumble through it. Nonetheless, she fell asleep feeling better about tomorrow for the first time in a long string of todays.

The next morning Mal got ready to go to work as usual. When she stormed through the kitchen for a cup of coffee, she noticed a plate and fork washed and placed neatly in the drainer by the sink. She wondered how they got there. Looking around, an idea raced like Mercury through her mind without pausing that perhaps Emery had done it. Maybe he got up in the night and ate something for the first time in over three years. Other things had changed, why not that? She opened the refrigerator and noticed a piece of pie was missing. Mal grinned.

Every week or two the preacher and Vickie continued stopping by and going through the usual pattern. He sat outside with Emery while she sat inside talking with Mal. Three times on Sunday morning Mal got up and got ready to go to church. Once she actually made it there, sneaking in the back door and onto the back pew halfway through the service.

One summer evening the preacher and Vickie came by and had dinner with Mal. Just as they finished, the preacher got a phone call, nothing urgent just someone wanting to ask a question about the Bible. The preacher promised to go home and look the answer up right away just to be sure. Vickie wanted to stay and help with the dishes so she and Mal escorted him to the door. They watched as he rushed down the steps and off toward the gravel drive.

As his black loafers crunched on the gravel drive, Emery leapt up from the porch and ran out to him. Taking the preacher by the arm, he asked, “Aren’t you going to sit for a while?”