Riven (12 page)

As he drifted toward sleep, Brady shook off the shame of having been caught. He looked forward to the next day—well, not to school, but to rehearsal. And after that he would visit Alejandro at Dennis Asphalt again.

Oldenburg

“I’ve been wanting to talk to Ravinia,” Grace said, slumped on the couch next to Thomas. “I’ve wanted us both to talk to her. But what do we say? She knows how we would feel about her and Dirk. And by now she has to know we know. If she thinks these people are treating us shamefully because of her, she won’t feel responsible. She’ll just be angry and want to strike out at them.”

“It would be hard to blame her. Now, Grace, please rest. It’s clear you’re not well, and I need you to be strong.”

“Oh, I’m strong enough, and I won’t sleep anyway—not until we know what’s going to happen here.”

“Nothing’s going to happen here. You know I won’t agree to discipline in this case, especially under Paul Pierce.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. You’d do that over my dead—”

“Don’t even say that, sweetheart.”

“You know what I mean. I need to know, and I mean tonight, whether the people are going to let this stand.”

“How do we do that?”

“Call someone. Call Ernie.”

Thomas rummaged in a kitchen drawer for the church directory, but as he reached for the phone, it rang. It was Jimmie Johnson.

“So you’ve had your meeting?”

“Yes, sir,” Thomas said. “You knew about this?”

“Yes. I wish I could have stayed for it, but my trip couldn’t be avoided. Is it true you told Pierce you wanted him and his wife out of the way, out of leadership?”

“Just the opposite, Jimmie. Do you have time to hear my side of it?”

“Sure, but let me tell you why you’re not going to win this one, Thomas.”

“No chance?”

“None, and here’s why. We get these squabbles all the time, and it’s always an old pillar’s word against the new guy. The denomination used to investigate and hold hearings, but with our local autonomy policy, our findings and our decisions have no teeth. We went through this with the previous two guys there, and Pierce skated through both of them. Too many people in that church are on his payroll—or I should says his sons’, given that Paul is so-called retired—so no one stands up to him. It’s a losing proposition. Best I can do is give you a letter that says we believe you are without fault here, which might help in your next slot.”

Thomas sighed. “I can’t believe it’s all fallen apart so quickly. We really thought we’d found the right fit here.” He outlined for Johnson the decision of the elders.

Jimmie was silent for a moment. Then, “Suspension, discipline, and rent. All right, Thomas, I’m going to tell you up front that this is pure gossip and that I have no business passing it along. I do it only to encourage you, but you are not free to quote me or use it.”

“There’s no need,” Thomas said. “I imagine Paul has a few skeletons.”

“It’s worse than that. It goes to hypocrisy. He has three grown sons, not a one of them living for the Lord. They don’t even attend church. Six, seven marriages between ’em. There, I’ve said it, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

“What’s your counsel, Jimmie?”

“Pack up. Get out. Fold your tent and steal away.”

“And he wins.”

“Yeah, he wins.”

“And where am I supposed to go? I can’t keep doing this, sir. Grace is under the weather, and—”

“Listen, have you ever thought of getting out of the pastorate?”

“Jimmie, I was called to this. It’s all I know. What would I do with myself? Teach Bible college? I don’t have enough education. Missionary work? I’m too old.”

“Actually I heard about something just the other day. Let me look into it and get back to you. Wherever you land, leave a phone number at headquarters, and I’ll find you.”

“I have no idea where that will be.”

“You’ve got friends, don’t you? Someone who’ll take you in until you land on your feet?”

“I’ll think about it,” Thomas said. “And thanks for hearing me out.”

“I’m awfully sorry, Thomas. I should have given you more warning, but I guess I just naively hoped you’d be the guy who could work with Paul.”

When Thomas hung up, Grace was at his elbow. And when he had filled her in, she reached for the phone.

“Who are you calling?”

“Do you trust me, Thomas?”

“You know I do.”

“Then let me do this.” She called the moving trailer rental place and left a message that she would be there when they opened in the morning and wanted the same size unit they had dropped off not long before.

“You don’t want to take a few days?” Thomas said. “Say our good-byes?”

“I don’t want to be here a minute longer than I have to be. And the last thing I want is Paul or Patricia showing up to try to talk you into submitting to his authority.”

“Oh, I reckon Mrs. Carey would drive him off her land with a shotgun.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said. “I know we’re supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us. Only God can do that for me. Keeping from broomsticking that man would be the hardest work I’d ever have to do.”

The rest of the night, Grace busied herself packing. Thomas handled the big stuff and pleaded with her every half hour or so to take a break, get some sleep, start again in the morning. But she kept working.

Monday evening | Dennis Asphalt & Paving | Addison

Alejandro was stocky with smooth dark skin, a moon-shaped face, gleaming teeth, and a full head of black hair that hung over his forehead. He leaned back in a cheap chair before a desk covered with a mountain of papers.

“Okay, Mr. Brady Darby, you might be in luck. I got a guy hurt his back and is gonna be out awhile. Can you give me two hours a night, Monday through Friday?”

“Two?”

“Needs to be two, man.”

“Okay. But I can’t get here till seven.”

“You mind workin’ alone?”

Brady shook his head. “What do I do?”

“I’ll teach you, and right now. You ever drive a forklift?”

“No.”

“It’s easy. I mean, you gotta learn, but you’ll get it. Follow me.”

Alejandro led him to an outbuilding where row upon row of steel forms had been filled with cement or concrete—Brady didn’t know which, so he asked.

Alejandro looked surprised at the question. “Cement is
in
concrete, man. Concrete is the cheapest way to make car stops. Some people call them blocks. There are some plastics and composites coming that might eventually run us out of the business, but for now, we’re the biggest. Our crew spends most of the day pouring these and letting them harden. They’re six feet long, four inches high, and six inches wide. Once they set, our guys knock off the holds and free the blocks from the forms. You see how each one has two slots underneath? That’s where the lift forks go, and that’s where you come in.”

Alejandro motioned for Brady to follow, and the foreman scampered up into the seat of a forklift truck, proving more agile than he looked. He fired up the machine and deftly handled the controls, expertly lifting each finished car stop and setting it in place on a thick wooden skid.

“Once you have a load that’s as high as it is wide,” he hollered over the engine noise, “you’re ready to load it onto the truck!”

The six-foot square load of car stops appeared to tax the forklift, and Alejandro slowed now as he pivoted the machine and proceeded to the back of a flatbed truck with a winch built onto it.

“Just ignore the winch, unless you set them on there wrong and have to straighten ’em!” Alejandro shouted. “That’s for off-loading at the job sites otherwise!”

In a few minutes he had loaded three pallets onto the truck. “It’ll hold twelve total, three more on the bottom, six on top. You wanna try it?”

“Sure!”

Alejandro showed Brady the controls and had him drive the forklift around the yard, around a pile of raw goods, between a couple of paving trucks. Brady was tentative and overcorrected at first, but soon he began to get the hang of it. Then Alejandro had him feather the controls until he had a feel for lifting and tilting the forks. When he had to maneuver inside the outbuilding, however, things got dicey. Once he slammed on the brake just before hitting the metal doorframe.

“You can see that’s been hit a lot of times, even by experienced guys,” Alejandro said. “But it’s good to not do that.”

When Brady tried lifting the first car stop, he drove the forks into the stop above the slots, pushing the entire form into the next and breaking the first stop.

Brady swore.

“That’s all right. Everybody’s got to learn. You got a week to quit doing that. Then we start taking it out of your pay. Each of these stops costs about what we pay you per hour, so you don’t want to break any. Break two on a shift and you make no money.”

“I’ll learn!”

“Of course you will.”

It took Brady an hour to load two pallets and get them onto the truck.

“You’ll get better and faster each time,” the foreman said. “Just remember, we have to dock you for broken or even cracked ones, because they become scrap. Can’t sell ’em.”

In two hours each night, provided Brady could manage this, he would make three times what he made in an hour at the Laundromat. The first two hundred would go to Tatlock, of course, but soon enough he’d be back on track with his car fund. That day couldn’t come soon enough.

Peebles, Ohio

Thomas Carey felt fortunate that old Bible college friends had proven hospitable without even having to be present. Thomas had caught them by phone just as they were leaving for vacation, and his old buddy insisted that the Careys “camp out at our place for as much of the next two weeks as you need.” He told Thomas where to find the key and was adamant that he and Grace wholly make themselves at home.

“He didn’t even ask why we needed a place, Grace.”

She had been dozing next to him in the front seat. “That’s wonderful. True friends. Maybe he knows of an opening somewhere.”

It was nice not to have to unload much. Their stuff filled the trailer, but all they needed were their toiletries and a few changes of clothes. Thomas immediately phoned the denomination headquarters and left his temporary phone number for Jimmie Johnson. When he found Grace hanging their clothes in the guest room closet, he said, “You need to get to bed. You look terrible.”

“Why, thank you, Dale Carnegie.”

“You seriously don’t look well. And that bruise has grown.”

“Can’t figure that one out. Age, I guess.”

“It’s more than that. Once we get settled somewhere, you’re seeing a doctor.”

“Yes, I suppose I should,” she said, which startled Thomas. Grace was the most doctor-averse person he had ever met. He’d had to force her to get an annual physical once she turned forty. Not once had she gone willingly, let alone volunteered. And now she was saying that she supposed she should? He prayed she would take it easy in the meantime. Fat chance.

To his relief, once Grace had dropped into bed, despite that it was a small and strange one, she slept soundly.

The next morning, as Grace continued to sleep, Thomas began calling everyone he knew, briefly explaining that their most recent assignment had simply not worked out and they were now eagerly looking into new opportunities.

Thomas meticulously kept track of every phone call, determined to reimburse his hosts for the use of their phone. He enjoyed several long conversations with old friends, reminiscing and updating, but no one was aware of openings anywhere.

When hunger pangs hit midmorning, Thomas realized he had not heard Grace stirring. On the one hand, she needed her rest. On the other, she also needed to get moving and eat. He found her awake but still. He told her of many of his phone calls and passed along greetings from old friends.

“I’ve just been praying and thinking and singing.”

“You can sing at a time like this?”

“Sometimes it’s all I can do. I’m dreading the next conversation with Ravinia. I want to scold her, to advise her, to be the parent I should be to a prodigal. But you know she’ll come out with guns blazing when she realizes what’s happened. They’ll wish they’d never tangled with her.”

Thomas had to smile.

“What?” she said.

“Imagine Paul Pierce trying to deal with her.”

Grace chuckled. “Imagine Patricia. I’d tell Rav to keep calling her Pat.”

Tuesday evening | Dennis Asphalt & Paving

Alejandro was closing the office when Brady showed up with Peter and introduced him.

“Nice to meet you,
muchacho Pedro.
You are welcome to watch your brother break my car stops, but you must stay far from the machinery and the work area,
comprende
?”

“He talks funny,” Peter said.

“He wants to know if you understand, Petey.”

“Oh yeah, I do!”

“Call me if you need anything, Brady. And don’t worry about doing too much tonight. It would be good if you can load the whole truck, but keeping from breaking any is more important. And you know I’m only paying you for two hours, even if it takes more time.”

“I’ll fill that truck, sir.”

14

Peebles, Ohio

The call from Jimmie Johnson came late that night. “Thomas, your daughter is frantically trying to reach you. All she had was the number in Oldenburg, and when she finally reached someone at the church, they told her you were no longer there.”

“Thanks, Jimmie. We’ll call her. And you mentioned a potential opening for me.”

“I did, and there’s a real possibility here, but I want to talk with you in person first.”

“Why?”

“Really, Thomas, I don’t want to talk about it by phone. It’s not a pastorate, but it’s still full-time ministry. It would require a move to Adamsville. I’d like to meet you there on my way back to headquarters. Could you be there for lunch tomorrow? I would not advise bringing Grace.”

“Grace is always with me.”

“I know. But I’d like to chat with you in private, and then I want you to decide whether to pursue this before exposing Grace to it.”