Life's Golden Ticket (12 page)

The image changed again.

Mary.

She and the “mirror me” were hugging on the back deck of my new home. They were standing next to a large dinner table, arranged with dozens of candles and roses.

He bent down. “Mary, you've made life worth living, and you have lifted my soul to the stars. Will you share your life with me? Will you marry me?”

Mary lifted her hands to her face in surprise and burst into tears.

“
Oh
,
my God
,
yes!
” She pulled him to his feet and kissed him all over his face. He hugged her tightly, rocking her back and forth for what seemed an eternity, not wanting to say a word, not wanting her to hear his voice crack.

Finally, she said, “I'm
so
happy. You make me feel like a princess. I love you so much.”

“I just want to be a good man to you, Mary. I want to be a good man.”

“You are,” she said, nestling into his arms. “
You are . . .
you are . . . you are . . .”

Minutes later she excused herself to wash the mascara from her eyes. As she walked into the house he crashed down into a dinner chair and began crying. Tears of joy fell from his face, and he kept nodding, convincing himself that she had actually said yes.

Then he looked directly at me through the mirror. He nodded approvingly, then whispered, “You
are.
”

I
walked out of the Hall of Mirrors and took a deep breath. The air felt lighter, crisper. The noise of the people walking by didn't seem so overwhelming. I started down the stairs. Henry was standing to the side, smoking a pipe.

“You smoke?” I asked.

“Nope,” he replied, and walked into the crowd.

I laughed and followed. “What do you mean? You're smoking now!”

“You only live once, right?”

Henry's demeanor had changed. He seemed tired, distracted.

We walked south, back toward where the elephants were. We didn't speak. Henry just kept puffing at his pipe and staring off into the distance.

“Is everything okay, Henry?” I asked.

He nodded and took a big draw on his pipe. “Sure, son. I'm just a bit tired. Not as young as I used to be.” He smiled at me reassuringly. “But no time for that. We've got a lot of work to do yet.”

“What's next?”

“We've got to talk about what you're doing with your life. The scene I saw of you in the Hall of Mirrors wasn't a good thing.”

I shook my head and patted his back. “Don't worry about that, Henry. I feel so different now. I'm going to change all that.”

Henry stopped and grabbed my shoulder. “I hear you. But let me ask you something. How
long
has that been going on? You disliking your work, arguing with Mary because of it, being stuck in a job and a life that you don't want?”

I thought about it, and my enthusiasm waned. “A few years.”

“A few years?”

I looked at the ground. “More than a few.”

Henry kicked at the toe of my shoe. “Try about four,” he said sternly. “And in the past
four
years, have you ever felt pretty good about yourself, the way you're feeling now, even if just momentarily?”

“Yeah, for a moment here and there, but nothing like this before I . . .”

“Good enough,” he continued. “Good enough. But listen, just because you are starting to get over the past and you feel lighter and better because of it doesn't mean you're going to change. We've got to have a serious discussion about why you've allowed all this to go on for four years, because you and I both know the reason isn't just your difficult past—it has to do with the way you've been making your decisions. So, will you agree to talk about all this a little more?”

Henry's voice was hoarse when he spoke. I couldn't tell if it was because of his smoking or if he was just feeling tired or if he was just tired of
me.
Either way, my gut told me something was bothering him.

“Sure, Henry, I'll talk about it.”

“Good.”

We continued walking south past the animal cages until we came to an enormous steel-sided building.

“The livestock pavilion,” Henry said, with a surprising tone of contempt.

“Not a fan?” I asked. “We don't have to go in. I don't like the smell of these places anyway.”

“Me neither. But we do have to go in.”

We entered the building through a two-story-high garage door. The dirt floor of the pavilion was littered with piles of manure.

Henry crinkled his nose and looked at me. “Yeah. We do have to be in here. The crap that goes on in here has gone on in both our lives. Best we see it so we don't keep stepping in it.”

W
e sat on the top row of the bleachers, four rows above anyone else. We could see the entire pavilion. Metal livestock pens holding cattle, pigs, goats, and horses spread across what must have been two football fields of space. The noise of all the animals was almost deafening. In the middle of the pavilion was a large, fenced-in circle. Henry said that was the exhibition area, where farmers and ranchers showed off their animals.

The place was huge. “I've never seen anything like this before,” I said.

“Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of it,” Henry said. He spoke in a whisper, almost as if he were talking to himself rather than me.

“Oh?” I asked. “Did you grow up on a ranch?”

“Practically.” He looked down into the pens and seemed troubled. “Do you remember . . .” He suddenly erupted in a spasm of coughing. He coughed so hard and for so long that I instinctively reached over and patted him on the back. When he could speak again, he thanked me.

I couldn't help but smirk. “You might want to stay away from that pipe.”

“Right,” he said, his face turning pale. He spat on the ground and continued. “Do you remember when I vouched for you at the front gate?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. I've been meaning to ask you about it . . . and to thank you for it. I realize that it was, in some way, a big deal. So thank you.”

Henry scrutinized me as if checking my sincerity. Then he slapped my knee. “Well, it was my pleasure. I saw something in you. And
after seeing Mary's unopened envelope, I knew our stories were
supposed
to overlap. Anyway, if that's the case, I better tell you some of my story.” He paused and looked across the pavilion. “Unfortunately, a lot of it happens in places like this.” Henry shifted in his seat as if readying himself for a long story. “I suppose my life isn't much different from yours, at least when it comes to the themes that have woven through it. Like you, I thought the world was a dark place for a long time.

“I was raised in Wyoming. Most people don't know that about me. It was cold as hell there, and I don't talk about it much. Just the memories alone sometimes chill me to the bone.

“My dad was a coal miner. He was a big man. Tough and mad at the world because his life hadn't worked out the way he wanted it. But you could tell he loved us. He never said it, but he'd look at us now and then with pride. There was one scene when I was twelve, when he bent down, hugged me hard, looked me straight in the eye—one of the only times I can remember—and said that he
knew
I would make him a proud father. He used to tell all his co-workers that his kids would really make it in the world. He worked and busted his ass and sacrificed his whole life to make sure we could go to school and have a better future than he did.

“Anyway, when I was thirteen, the coal tunnel Dad was working in collapsed. He and twelve other guys were buried alive. . . . They never dug him out.”

“Oh, no . . .” The words just fell out of my mouth. “I'm sorry, Henry.” I felt partly sorry for him and partly guilty that I had never asked him about his life despite all his questions about my own.

He didn't seem to hear me.

“I remember when Dad went to work that day, down to every detail. He yelled at Will and me—Will was my younger brother—for not doing our chores. Then he said we had to be more responsible and ruffled Will's hair. He said to me, ‘Be a good boy. Take care of your brother today. You're bigger than him, Henry, so you should always look out for him and other people.' Before he left he told Mom he'd be home on time like always. He said, ‘Thanks for breakfast, darlin'.
You're the light that pulls me out of that pit every day.' He always said that to her. Then he was gone.

“Few years later Mom died of a broken heart. Doctors said it was heart failure, a bad valve, but we knew. Will and I didn't have anybody to support us—no family, nothin'. So the local church found us a job and some housing . . . clear across the state. They sent us to work for a rancher named Wade. He agreed to feed us and shelter us. What they didn't know was that he'd work us to the bone and make us sleep in the loft in his barn. Unfortunately, we were too young to make our own decisions; we just went where we were told.

“Wade already had a bunch of ranch hands, and it didn't take Will and me long to figure out we weren't welcome. We were young, weak, and inexperienced. The other hands knew it and reminded us of it every day. They'd give us the chores that no one else wanted, serve us scraps from the lunch table, treat us like dogs any chance they got. If we made a mistake, they wouldn't say a word. Just hit us. With their fists or anything they had in their hands: a rope, reins, a canteen, whatever.

“Poor Will was always so scared, always wettin' his bed, even after he turned fifteen. I always did what I could to protect him. I'd work longer hours so he wouldn't have to. I'd eat less at the lunch table if they underserved us. I'd take the blame for any of his mistakes. I'd raise my hand to volunteer for the tough jobs whenever someone was eyeing him.

“All we ever wanted was to fit in, to be accepted. So we did everything we could to live up to the ranch hands' expectations. We followed their rules. We tried to impress them. We worked harder than anyone would ever expect, hoping for a kernel of recognition. We'd clean up after them at lunch and dinner. We'd tend to their horses. That was our whole life, trying to become one of them and trying to impress them. But the alienation and abuse continued.

“Will and I talked about leaving all the time. But where would we go? What would we do? We were just two dumb kids. So we stayed. And suffered.

“Then one day, on Will's eighteenth birthday, we decided we were fed up and would leave the next day. We were just going to walk out
and venture into the world. We didn't know what we were going to do, but it sure wasn't going to be ranching. That night, to celebrate, I stole a jug of whiskey and got my brother drunk. We talked about all the things we might discover out there in the big world. We drank and danced and sang. At one point, Will was so happy that he spontaneously leaped off the loft into a wagon full of hay below. He did an amazing front flip. He probably wouldn't have done it if I hadn't gotten him drunk.”

Henry paused and stared down into the pens.

“Will rotated too far . . . broke his neck on the wagon . . .”

“Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, no . . .”

“. . . After his death, I just . . .”

Henry seemed to be reliving the scene in his mind. He cleared his throat. “After my brother's death, I left Wade's ranch. I decided to strike out on my own.” He shook his head. “You know where I ended up? On another damn ranch! Somehow I'd convinced myself it was all I could do. I only knew one thing: ranching. I let my one talent box me in. Deep skills sometimes mean deep ruts. The pattern continued. I worked my ass off to fit in and impress people. And you know somethin'? At that second ranch it worked. People took notice—so much so that after a year one of the head guys asked me if I wanted to follow him to another ranch for more money. I said, sure, why not? Over the next fifteen years, same thing. I busted my hump to live up to other people's expectations and rules so I could fit in and impress them. Then, whenever someone accepted me, I'd follow them wherever they went. I followed other people's dreams. I went where I knew I might have a chance at belonging and being recognized.

“The tragedy of it all was, I didn't even like ranching! I'd wake up every morning, stare in the mirror, and see a person looking back who was miserable. The eyes always give it away. It was obvious to anyone who looked at me that I was living life at a low level of despair. Eventually I got out, but that's a whole 'nother story.” He turned toward me. “But you know why I'm telling you this story? Because I saw
exactly
that same look on your face in the image in the Hall of Mirrors—mildly miserable. Your eyes spoke volumes. You've been living
your life at a low level of despair because you're spending your days doing something you honestly could not care less about.”

W
e sat in silence until Henry sat up abruptly and smiled. He pointed down to the exhibition circle.

“You see that calf there? The one standing alone?”

A man on a horse was corralling all the cows and calves to one side of the circle. One calf stood still.

“Yeah. I see him.”

“Look at the little guy! Look at his legs.”

They were shaking.

“Listen to him.”

The calf was making a bawling, helpless noise.