First Skirmish

I can’t hold it against Indiana, what happened that early summer night.

Not so long ago.

Ten years. The kid was still in his pumpkin chair, but facing forward in the back seat of our white rental car and paging through Dr. Seuss books while my wife, Gina, and I entertained him on the long road from South Carolina to Missouri with bad renditions of show tunes.

By eight-thirty, we’d all had enough.

We had reservations just across the Indiana border at a name-brand hotel that I don’t see many of these days. Back then, they were more-or-less reputable, if not exactly luxurious.

When we parked the car, I noticed we were one of only three cars in the lot. But it didn’t click that anything might be wrong. Like I suggested above, we all were tired.

Had I been more alert, I might’ve noticed that at least a third of the security lights were dark, while the ones that were lit flickered faster than the swarms of June bugs around them.

Thick with bugs, thick with humidity, the night was a sour kitchen sponge in need of a cleansing rain. I licked dust from my lips.

Inside the motel, the girl behind the counter stood beside a No Smoking sign with a butt dangling from her lower lip. She seemed a little drowsy while checking me in.

Weren’t we all?

The first real warning bells went off when I read the back of my key card.

A message like I’d never seen before, and have never seen since —red, rubber stamped on the white plastic in an empty white space.

“Management not responsible for theft. Not responsible for accidents. Not responsible for altercations. Suggested curfew: 10:00 p.m.”

Altercations?

Curfew?

Back at the car, I showed the key to Gina and told her the room number. “Let’s get something to eat first? The boy’s tired,” she said.

“We might end up out past curfew,” I said.

Navigating from the parking lot, I was too busy searching the horizon for glowing restaurant lights to notice the old blue Ford pickup that followed us out.

Deciding to fill the tank with gas before we ate, I drove past a sit-down chain restaurant toward a dimly lit station.

I parked beside an island of two old pumps and the blue pickup slipped in behind me.

Two young guys with ball caps and sleeveless T-shirts the pulp stories call wife-beaters. I wondered why they called them that.

Inside the car I could see my hungry, young son pull a crabby face as Gina tried to console him. We should’ve stopped earlier.

“Hey smart-ass,” said one of the guys from the pickup. The one behind the steering wheel. Backwards cap, gray Fred-Flintstone stubble field on his lower jaw. “What’chu say to me, smart ass?”

Talking to me, but I didn’t make eye contact. In fact, at just that moment, I became intensely interested in the nozzle of the pump, still connected to my car.

In bad movies, the tourist-victim is so stupid, he’d stand there and finish filling his tank.

Or worse, he’d start making conversation with the guys in the truck.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, white-Toyota man. I thought I heard you say something to me.”

This wasn’t a movie. This was real life, and I wasn’t stupid.

Or even the slightest bit drowsy.

Just like that, everything I did took on an odd clarity—almost like it was in slow motion.

I disconnected the hose, hung it up on the pump, turned, stepped into the car, and told Gina to look straight ahead.

I drove smoothly forward—not fast, not slow– and wheeled deliberately back to the street.

Once there, I sailed past the restaurant, ignored the turnoff to the motel, swung a left-turn onto the interstate and, once securely in my lane, punched it –putting as much distance between me and the blue pickup as I could.

“Hey, relax,” said Gina. “What was that all about, anyway?” We were two miles down the road before I realized the kid was crying.

I had lost sight of the Ford just after we passed the motel.

That didn’t stop me from moving on across the Indiana plains.

“How far to St. Louis?” I said. “Maybe call ahead and make a new hotel reservation?”

“We’re not going back?” said Gina.

I thought about the run-down status of the motel—the flickering lights, the warning message on the key card. The way the blue pickup purposely targeted us.

“No, we’re not.” I said. “You can call them later and check out officially. Tell them we had a family emergency and had to leave.”

Which was true.

“You didn’t say,” she said. “What exactly was that all about?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

But I had some ideas.

And even if the boy was crying. And even if we were tired.

I knew we were better off than if we had stayed in Indiana.

“How about a show tune?” I said, and Gina started to sing.

And it was one of the best renditions I’ve ever heard.

I was 7 and she was fourteen, and I was madly in love.

Being what it is, memory doesn’t always follow a linear narrative, so the movies in my head are fragmentary bits and pieces, a patchwork quilt of happy, smiling pictures that still warms my heart now, almost fifty years later.

She sat in the back of the school bus. I was in the front, where the little kids were supposed to be.

But she crooked a finger at me, invited me back with a big smile, her long blonde hair caught and pulled by the wind of an open window, dust billowing around us as we roared headlong down a rural gravel road. Me, swaying along down the aisle like a sailor on a ship at sea—landing in her arms (Big hug!!!).

She let me sit beside her and I told her about a kid who brought his dog to school (She got a kick out of the story). About my dad’s hernia operation (That story—not so much). I told her what I wanted to be when I grew up (an animal doctor).

She told me she wanted to be a princess.

One day she got off the bus early and forgot her math book, a heavy tome covered in brown paper with a big, blue B painted on the front (B for Bloomfield. Go Bees!).

Panic! I called to the driver, made him stop, then hurled myself out the door with her book, waving wildly, shouting, yelling.

She was so grateful, she kissed my cheek.

Swoon!

Because we were neighbors, I saw her one day fly past in a blue car with some other girl. And she was laughing.

She was always laughing and smiling.

But in my mind—if not in reality—that was the car that took her away.

Took her away from all of us. Forever.

To this day, I don’t like blue cars.

They put a memorial plaque up in the band room to remember her. I didn’t see it until I arrived on the high-school scene six or seven years later. The memorial brought back all the memories and I’ve carried them with me all these decades.

When I passed her in age, I remember thinking I was finally old enough to take her to the movies.

In my thirties, I thought about her one day—and realized I was old enough to be her dad.

Typing this, now, I could be her grandpa.

And she’s still back there in time, ageless, laughing and smiling with peace symbols embroidered on her jeans and a necklace of beads around her neck.

And part of me is still there too, ripped up by the roots and left like dried flowers pressed in a book with a big blue B on the cover.

Tonight, I’m thinking about what’s left behind.

And who.

Mama’s stare is so hard, so consistent, and so filled with disgust, I struggle not to turn away.
But I keep my eyes level, my unaccepted hand out, my backbone straight.
I’m trembling inside.
“Happy Birthday, Mom,” I say, thankful in that awful spotlight to know Tilda isn’t my mother.
Her daughter-in-law, my friend Jean, puts a gentle hand on the old lady’s shoulder.
“Rich is saying hey to you, mom,” she says.
Tilda holds me with her eyes, doesn’t miss a beat. The battle-scarred she-wolf glaring at a scrawny pup.
“I know,” says Tilda.
I don’t even rate a sneer.
“She’s just mad Fred isn’t here,” whispers my wife, Gina, and it breaks the tension enough for me to make a hasty escape toward the gift table where I toss down the birthday card I carry.
Gina gets us some punch.
Fred, our basset hound, is part of the reason Mama Tilda doesn’t like me. (A recent incident involving a rain-drenched Fred, Mama trying to nap in Jean’s recliner, and a lot of slobber.)
The other reason is that I’m a long-haired hippie freak.
I know this because one afternoon after walking Fred past Jean’s house, my friend shared her mom-in-law’s frank judgement.
“She’s from a different time,” said Jean. “She worked in the mills her entire life. She’s a hard woman who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”
So, going into the birthday part, I knew the part I played.
But in the near-decade we’ve lived in South Carolina, Jean has become family. And Jean’s family, too is dear to us.
Sipping my glass of bland pink punch, I look across the room at Mama in her chair, stoically accepting her guests, greeting each of them with not much more joy than she showed me.
She’s a hard woman. And I wonder about her.
When we leave, I don’t say good-bye.
And then, one bright Sunday morning, I’m standing in the open narthex of a historic church as the congregation flows past, moving outside where they’ll shake the minister’s hand and greet the noon hour.
Gina and I are picking Jean up for lunch after the service, and we arranged to meet her here in the front of the church.
While we smile and nod, and greet a few people we know, I spot Mama Tilda, doddering toward me.
I can’t tell if she’s seen me.
She’s resplendent in a soft orange dress, tasteful gold earrings, and a freshly colored pile of thick-sprayed hair.
An old man greets her with a smile and, incredibly, she smiles back.
I’ve never seen Tilda smile.
Even now, it’s not much. Sort of an anemic tic of the cheek. But it’s there.
And the sparkle in her eyes can’t be denied.
This is Tilda in her element. With her people.
And her soft, parchment thin hands, knobby from decades of work and thick with veins gently accept the greetings offered to her. She holds hands with the man, his wife. She bends to touch the chin of a toddler. She coos over a newborn babe.
And then she’s beside me, looking straight into my eyes.
“Good morning, Tilda,” I say.
She nods, turns away. We’d both like to be somewhere else, but we’re trapped by a new wave of chatty, back-slapping parishioners heading for the exit at glacial speed.
“Nice day,” I offer, just for something to say.
Tilda nods. Which is some progress.
And then she cocks her head and her eyes light up with emotion.
She puts her hand gently on my arm, and when she speaks, her voice is warm like I’ve never heard it.
“I’d like to show you our upper room,” she says, and moves backwards toward an open door I hadn’t noticed before.
Again she touches me, then gives me a mischievous wink and crooks her finger for me to follow.
Away from the crown, beside an open stairway, Tilda is suddenly all sweetness and light.
“You’ll find a lot of joy in our upper room.”
Not being a religious person, and certainly not a Methodist, I’ve never been in the church before.
Or alone with Tilda for that matter.
“Discipline too,” she says. “I can show it to you,” she flashes me a genuine gold-crowned smile. “If you’d like.”
Swallowing hard, I don’t know what to say.
Tilda’s warm hand of friendship—of joy in the upper room!—rests on my arm.
Her smile is contagious.
Alluring.
She really is a beautiful woman.
The upper room awaits!
“Your wife will enjoy it too,” says Tilda.
Now I’m really sweating.
And she steps toward me.
Reaches around my back.
“Mama?”
Tilda picks up a paper pamphlet from a pile on the polished table there.
She holds it in front of my face, a thin newsprint booklet bound with two staples. A photo of a stained glass window on the cover, a series of Bible verses and commentary inside. The cover is emblazoned with the tract’s title.
The Upper Room.
“Read this devotional every morning when you get up, and each night before bed.”
“Joy?” I say.
Tilda pats my arm. “And discipline,” she says.
Then she moves deliberately back to the crowd.
As I watch, she turns back once. “Share it with your dog, too,” she says.
And she gives me that hard stare I’ll always remember.
And wonder about.