FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) – part 23

As soon as Mr. McClain got out of his ’51 Studebaker in the front of the house, Red jumped down from the scaffold and hurried over to see him. I noticed that he, all of sudden, became quite the gentleman himself, another one of those incongruities on this job.

I had finished filling the wheelbarrow with mud and was about to grab the handles to push it over to the wall when Doocy came stomping up to me hollering to hurry up the mud. In disgust, he took his right hand – the one with those webbed fingers on the right side – and grabbed ahold of the wheelbarrow, kind of pushing me out of the way with his body at the same time.

For the first time, I rebelled and pushed back and said, “Doocy, I got this, I got it.” I think the unexpected sassiness threw Doocy off his game and prevented him from beating me to a pulp right there.

Sometimes pride will make you do strange things. I could feel our new guests watching the scene and I didn’t want them to think this young boy on the job was helpless – which I was, of course, but I didn’t want them to think I was.

You understand.

As soon as I pushed back on Doocy, I gripped the wood handles, prying his webbed hand off at the same time, even had the courage (or lack of sense) to give him a little ‘Doocy’ glare of my own, and started pushing it toward the bricklayers. I was making sure to balance it carefully, because a barrow full of mud weighs a couple hundred pounds, at least.

About the time I got ten feet, I saw out of the side of my eye that the back doors of the Studebaker had opened – and two girls had gotten out.

Ah, friends, our eager and brave young cager is about to take the last shot as the clock winds down. Until the full tale is told, all we can do is hope the outcome is a glorious nothing-but-net outcome, a hope that we will grip for now the way I was gripping the handles of that wheelbarrow.

For us and our  hopes, though, let’s not hold on too tightly.

I could tell that the girl on the other side of the car was pretty young, maybe thirteen, or fourteen, but the one on the side nearest me was a bit older, maybe sixteen – my own age – but no more.

Naturally, I took a second take when I saw her. (Now, before we judge, what do you expect a sixteen-going-on-seventeen-year-old gentleman to do?) At that tense moment, my mind registered that she was slim, medium height, had long dark hair, and was wearing some sort of blue and yellow outfit. As I said, I only had time for a glance.

As fate would have it, the glance was a second too long, and it got me in trouble at the most inopportune of times. Maybe that’s our life story in a nutshell. A wheelbarrow full of mud has to be handled carefully, and if you get it out of balance, even a little, it will ‘tump over’ in a heartbeat.

It didn’t help that Doocy was right behind me griping, “Come on, Pup, ya pushed ol’ Doocy away like you be a full-growed man, so if you’s goin’ to do this, do it in a herry.”

That’s when the wheelbarrow leaned to the left.

I tried to pull it back right, but it’s like driving a car. Once you swerve the wrong way it is harder than anything to get it straightened back up. I flexed my forearm muscles with all I had to try to save it, and Doocy, who saw it coming, ran up and grabbed the side of the wheelbarrow with his webbed hand trying to steady it, but it didn’t do any good. I dumped that entire load of mortar right on the ground, not thirty feet from Mr. McClain and, more importantly, from the young dark-haired girl in the baby blue and yellow outfit.

And it gets worse.

When Doocy jumped over to steady the wheelbarrow and failed, I dumped the whole load right over on his right pant leg and foot, splattering it all the way up to his knee.

Some moments in time freeze right where they are. Truth is, I guess I am entrapped in that very moment as we speak. It has been frozen in memory for half of a century, a never-fading half-century moment: There’s Doocy standing right there today, just as he was then, with mud covering his right leg and standing in the pile of it two or three inches deep. The clock just seemed to stop fifty years ago.

Then the scene turns to slow motion.

There’s Red’s hurrying over to the crime scene … spitting out a handful of his favorite words half under his breath so as not to be heard distinctly from our visitors ... There’s Pee Wee on the scaffold hollering in slow-motion words, “My good-ness Pup, you did-n’t just dump that mud all over Doocy, are ya kiddin’ me right now?” And so on and so forth.

It was a Polaroid moment if I’ve ever seen one.

I’ll close the curtain on the rest of the scene and save you a bit of the agony that I enjoyed, except to say that somehow, right in the middle of the scene and without even meaning to, I glanced over at the dark-headed girl, who was standing over by the Studebaker watching the scene with the rest. When I caught her eye, I know I saw a little smile, a sympathetic smile, perhaps, maybe even a grimace, but beneath it a smile. I didn’t dare look back again, but it was enough sunshine in it that it almost made me ignore the beatdown that would go on for the rest of the day and would be rehearsed for years and years to come, along with the rest of the drama that is forthcoming in our story.  

The smile, the best Polaroid moment of all, just erased the rest of the scene at that moment.

It just could not erase it over the next half of a century, but that’s okay.

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.

In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.