Hometown Legend (27 page)

“Yours do the same for you, Elvis. God doesn’t run the world the way you want Him to, so you decide He doesn’t exist, and
poof, He’s gone.”

“I guess.”

“One of us has to be wrong,” she said.

“Why can’t we both be right? God exists for you because you believe in Him. He doesn’t exist for me because I don’t.”

“Because that doesn’t make sense.”

“And what does? God taking my parents the day I’m supposed to get saved? Having no relatives,
none
, who would take me? Sending me to foster homes where they pretend to be wonderful and they’re worse than no parents at all?
Letting a little girl live in a place like that and sticking her with a guy like me who winds up dumping her just like everybody
did me? You believe what works for you and I’ll believe what works for me.”

Rachel stood and looked down at him in the yard. “How’s it working, El?”

“What?”

“How’s that working out for you?”

He stared at her. “For a nice girl, you can be kind of mean, you know that?”

“I’m not trying to be. You choose not to believe in God because you can’t make it make sense any other way. But it’s not working,
is it?”

“I’m not happy, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t expect to be. That way I’m not disappointed.”

“You’re so disappointed you can’t stand it.”

He showed her both palms. “Well, there you are. End of discussion.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’ve got no more to say. Do you?”

“Well, I was just wondering. If you really think stuff is only true if you believe it, why don’t you quit believing your parents
are dead?”

He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. Rachel was sinking. Why had she gotten into this? “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just
trying to get you to see—”

“Either they’re really dead or they left me too.”

“Elvis, forget what I just said. I’m not good at this.”

“You’re right about that.”

He walked away. Why was this so hard? Everything she tried made things worse.

Rachel jogged to catch him. She reached for his hand, but he wrenched away. “Don’t,” he said. “Just leave me alone.” He jogged
off, and Rachel felt she had failed again.

I
patted my pocket on the way home from the rehab center. “Scuse me for a minute, Coach,” I said, pulling out my phone. I called
Bev but talked low cause I wasn’t ready to make clear to Buster what was going on between us. “Just checking in on you, Miss
Raschke.”

“Oh, you are, are you? How’s my sweetheart?”

“Fine, and you?”

“Aren’t we formal? You on your cell phone?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Surprised you know how to use it. You’re with someone, aren’t you?”

“That’s correct.”

“Who?”

“Coach Schuler and I are on our way back from visiting his wife.”

“How is she?”

“Fine, ma’am. More on that later.”

“Tell me you love me.”

“More on that later too. Glad to hear you’re doing fine.”

“You rascal.”

“Yes, ma’am, looking forward to your getting back to work one of these days.”

“I’ll bet you are. I love you, Calvin.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“With all my heart.”

“All right, then.”

“I wish you were here so I could kiss you.”

“Me too, ma’am.”

“I want you to hold me and—”

“Okay, then, Miss Raschke, I’ll check in on you again.”

“When, Calvin?”

“Bye, ma’am.”

“When, Calvin?”

“Sooner than you think. Bye.”

The light was on in the front room when Coach pulled up to my house. “I’d better not find Jackson in there,” I muttered.

“Hm?”

“Nothing.”

“I heard most of your conversation with Helena, you know,” he said.

“I figured.”

“Guess I should be encouraged.”

“I’d say.”

“Long road ahead,” he said. “But she’s worth it.”

“Attaboy.”

“She tell you she miscarried a coupla years after Jack was born?”

“No.”

“We never told anybody. It was a girl.”

“I’m sorry, Coach.”

“Tore me up, but it just about did her in.”

“Never went through that,” I said. “But I understand it’s hard.”

“Made her almost smother Jack. I was afraid he’d be a mama’s boy.”

“Never seemed that way.”

“No, but you can see why it was hard when he—”

“Yeah. Sorry bout what I said to her about coming to a game.”

“I was touched. You know me too well.”

“But I wasn’t thinking, Coach. Expecting her to watch a football game that would bring back all those mem—”

“You meant well.”

• • •

I found Rachel sitting on the ottoman, her head in her hands. I stepped over her and sat in the chair. “I hurt when you hurt,
baby,” I said. “Talk to me.” She climbed into my lap and cried on my shoulder. We told each other about our evenings.

“Well, we both seem to have the right idea,” I said. “But we don’t close so well, do we?”

She laughed through her tears. “What am I gonna do, Daddy?”

“Nobody’s gonna explain God. Best we can do is try to show what He’s like by doing what we think He wants us to.”

“But can I show Elvis that?”

“Sounds like you tried.”

“I’m not gonna quit.”

“I believe that.”

• • •

I’d had Ginny call every employee from both shifts to a meeting at the plant at 8:00 the next morning. Almost every one of
em showed up. I was in a suit at work for the first time in years. We put the answering machines on in the offices and shut
down the lines in the shop. Everybody crowded into one end of the old brick building. The stillness was so strange. I stared
at men and women who came to work every day in sneakers, jeans, and T-shirts. Some of em had goggles hanging around their
necks. The turners and stitchers wore adhesive tape on their fingers, even after years of building up calluses.

“You know I don’t call everybody together for good news,” I began. “I could do that at the company picnic.” Man, I was looking
into some pale, stony faces.

Someone hollered, “Is this about Bev Raschke?”

“No. She’s doing better and she sends her greetings. Early this morning I told her what I’m about to tell you, so let me get
right to it. We lost our biggest account yesterday. Dixie’s done with us at the end of this season.”

People started mumbling and I held up a hand. “Stay with me now. We all know that should put us out of business, and maybe
it will. But you know I won’t go down without a fight, and I know you won’t either. I’m looking at every angle to see what
we can do, and, hear me now, that does
not
include more layoffs. Now, hang on! I’m not saying we’ll still be open in ninety days, but if we are, it’ll be with everybody
I’m looking at right now. Either we all make this happen, or it’s over for everybody.

“Some of you may not be able to live that way, and if you feel you have to move on and find something solid, no offense taken.
But if I sell this place and split the profits, it’ll be with everyone who stayed to the end. Do I want to sell? No! Am I
looking at adding product? Yes. Do I have a clue what’s gonna happen? No.

“I’ll promise you this. You’ll know within twenty-four hours of anything happening. My top priority is taking care of the
people who have taken care of this business, and that’s you. Yeah, I could sell it and close it and wish you the best. But
you know me better’n that. If anybody benefits from what’s happening, we all do. Fair enough?”

They applauded.

“Questions?”

“Would you send manufacturing overseas?”

“I won’t deny considering every option, but I’ll tell you this: If it comes to that, somebody’s gonna pay through the nose,
and you’re all gonna get a piece of it.”

“We trust you, Mr. Sawyer!”

“Yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“All right,” I said. “I appreciate that, and I’m asking you to stick with me. Squelch rumors. Don’t believe what you read
in the paper. And don’t believe anything about American Leather unless you hear it from me. Okay? You know, Gideon went to
war against an army of thousands with just three hundred men, because they were the only ones with the guts to fight and win.”

“Yeah!”

“And let me tell you a brief story about the Southern Longleaf Pine. You know, that majestic tree—”

“Hey, boss! You ain’t the only one what played for Buster Schuler!”

“Then you know this a good one! Now, shut up and listen!”

• • •

Bev got a kick hearing me recount that meeting. And course she was more eager than ever to get back to work and help. But
she was being told she needed several more weeks of bed rest. I spent most of my mornings with her, through lunch, then worked
with accountants, bankers, consultants, efficiency experts, and suitors—a fancy name for the vultures that start circling
a dying business. Mr. Seals and his International whatever were history. We weren’t big enough for em now that Dixie had left
us. Didn’t break my heart. I just hated to see the sea of money rolling out with not much to show for it.

Helena Schuler finally started getting out of the rehab center once in a while, and where did she wanna go? Straight to Bev’s.
And she wouldn’t be driven there by anybody but Rachel, who had finally got her license but was technically too young to be
responsible for her. That meant I had to be along, which I didn’t mind, cause it gave me another reason to go to Bev’s.

Problem was, it was always ladies’ day when Helena was there, cause that meant Kim came too. They would shoo me out and gather
in Bev’s bedroom or around her easy chair and do whatever it is women do when men aren’t around. Plotting something if you
ask me, but I was accused by more’n one of em of being sexist when I suggested that. So I shut up.

Rachel kept trying to reach out, as she called it, to Elvis. One of her schemes was to fix him a lunch every day. I said,
“He can come over and make himself a lunch from my groceries, but you’re not gonna be preparing a meal for him every day and
call
me
sexist.” Fortunate for me, the other ladies agreed. That was another thing I learned about being in love with a woman who
knows my daughter and my coach’s wife and whose best friend kicked me in the seat till my eyes opened up: a man has no secrets.
They all know about my every thought and decision, and they all got opinions. Mercy.

Before you know it, they all know Elvis’s history and they’re weighing in on that. It’s all Coach and I can do to keep the
boy focused on his school work, cause he ain’t gonna be going to college for the academics, if you know what I mean. Anyway,
all he wants to do is carry the football, and the way he practices and lifts and trains and, best of all, plays, there’s nothing
we want more than to let him have at it.

The kids stay motivated, and Buster’s at his best and getting better as his wife’s doing more than giving him the time of
day. Four weeks and four games later, Bev’s serious about coming back to work, at least part-time. Everybody, even Coach,
knows we’re seeing each other, and the football team’s got the whole town talking. Heck, the whole state. Seriously. Even
the kicked-off kids are coming back to watch.

We win four straight conference games to go 6-1 in our league (7-2 overall) and two teams knock off Dickinson for us, so we’re
in the play-offs. Elvis is setting offensive records people haven’t even dreamed about, and we’re getting talked about on
TV again.

Bev tells me she’d like to come to our first play-off game. It’s gonna be at Beach, and course I’ve told her what their smart
aleck coach said to Buster after they whipped our cans in the opener.

“Are you sure it’s all right?” I say. “You supposed to be out? It could be cold and I don’t think their stands are any softer’n
ours.”

“It’s a Saturday afternoon game, Cal,” she says. “And Kim and Rachel will watch out for me.”

“How about Miz Schuler?”

“That’s not gonna happen. Don’t think we haven’t suggested it. I think it’s a miracle she even cares what happens with his
team. And I sure wouldn’t want to be reminded of what she saw twelve years ago.”

I nodded. “Looky there,” I say, pointing at the TV. It was a reporter strolling our end zone again.

The graphic shows Athens City ranked in the top twenty in the state, and the reporter is saying, “Do not adjust your TV. The
half-strength, high-scoring Athens City Crusaders are defying all odds by striking down one Goliath after another. Two months
ago we reported that after twelve losing seasons the football world had given up on Athens City. Well, don’t tell Coach Buster
Schuler and his miracle squad of just fifteen players. In their final season of play, the Crusaders have their eyes set on
the state championship. And like we said, when a legend comes out of retirement, you’d better take notice, Alabama.”

They show clips of our team winning here and there, us charging out onto the field, Buster walking taller, shoulders back,
chest out, determined look on his face. Man, he looked like he believed we could beat anybody.

The reporter continues, “People in every corner of Alabama are asking one question: can lightning keep striking Athens City?
Everywhere they go, stands are full, people are signing petitions to keep the doomed school alive, and kids are asking the
players for autographs.”

It was true. It was all we could do to keep our kids’ minds on the games what with the TV cameras, out-of-town newspaper reporters,
and all the talk about the school. They interviewed Fred Kennedy on TV and he just smiled real nervous and said, “We’re grateful
the team is doing well and giving us something to remember about Athens City. The closing of the school is, sadly, a done
deal. I’m not a popular guy, appearing to ignore hundreds of names on petitions, but this is not about money anymore. We’re
not going to accept the Jack Schuler Scholarship money, and even if we did and it was ten times what we know it to be, Athens
City High is history at the end of this school year.”

• • •

Seemed like most of the time we were home, Elvis Jackson was there. It was clear nothing was going on between him and Rachel.
They didn’t so much as stand close to each other in public. For sure he wasn’t gonna pass up the free lunches, even if I still
insisted he make em himself. It was just them studying, him doing his laundry, and him fixing a lunch, every time I turned
around.