FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 76

Everything continued as if a boy in an old blue truck had never driven out on the job and was co-winner of the blue-ribbon award for “Fight of the Century,” voted on exclusively by the chain gang bunch out on the brick job. 

From there, things kept rolling along as if there had never been a scuffle ending with an Alabama country boy three inches deep in mud in a mud tub. All was as before, kind of – the drama on the job site, hotly-contested basketball games at the Y, special evenings with Mama, church-goings listening to Preacher Harvey, and days and nights with the dark-haired girl.

Oh, it is not that it was forgotten. But for the most part, the only outward signs that our modern-day Elijah popped up on the job out of nowhere were the skint places on both sides of my temples, a scab on my left elbow, and not a few other bumps and bruises, some I never felt until I got in the shower every night and felt the burn.

The “skint” places on my face proved to be constant reminders of what happened that Monday afternoon. They were not my friend. As soon as the sun began to beat down on that Rock Mills hill, and sweat started pouring down my face, that sweat would burn the daylights out of me.

Occasionally – as in at least once a day – Doocy would catch wind of my discomfort and run over and grab some more of that axle grease and, despite my protests, rub it on the side of my head, grab a dirty rag he kept in his back pocket, rub the sweat off of my face and out of my eyes and – just like a boxing trainer – tell me all along how great I was doing after the debacle and that he just wanted to keep me greased up and hydrated for next time.

“If you’ll keep a-weavin’, thet ‘Bama boy won’t evah hit cha, jus’ like las’ time. The Breeze ne’er saw such weavin’ and dippin’ and duckin’ in his’n whole ‘xistence.”

One thing is for sure, Doocy kept one eye over his shoulder all the time for the sudden return of the boy in the blue truck. In the meantime, he would tell me over and over that whenever I start to feel the burn, or my elbow gets to bleeding again as it did every day for a month, to just remember that all those things were “jus’ like thet book, they’re yore red badge of courage as pretty as Christmas.”

The boy in the ’71 blue Ford sure brought out the best prose that Doocy ever invented, that’s for sure.

The following Friday night, for the third in a row, Corrina and I took off as soon as work was over and drove home to LaGrange for me to shower and rest up while she and Mama talked. When we got to the house, I told Corrina I wanted to show her something before we went in. I opened the car door for her, took her hand to help her out, and walked her across the street that divided our house from Uncle Willie’s next door. Behind their house was a big vacant lot big as a pasture. I still don’t know how the street next to it is a steep hill while the vacant lot is flatter than a football field, which, technically, it was on many fall days during those growing up years.

I walked Corrina over to the lot holding her hand, and I could tell she was curious to see what I had to show her.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked. She recognized the question was rhetorical, so she didn’t answer. “This is kind of the place I grew up.”

“This vacant lot?” Corrina asked, curiously.

“Yes ma’am. I didn’t know it before, maybe I didn’t know it until jus’ now, but I think I grew up right here in this place,” I said, then I added, “Aw, I doubt it would make a lot of sense to you, it’s jus’ somethin’ I’ve been thinkin’ about.”

“Oh, no, tell me, Pup.”

I didn’t know exactly how to explain it, so I began to think out loud as we often do. I began by explaining that on a hundred occasions, especially on a Saturday afternoon in the Fall, I would go over to this vacant lot and play football.

“With whom?”

“Well, that’s the funny part. With nobody. Jus’ me. I know Goodnight Irene next door and Uncle Willie and his wife we called Aunt Bounce all thought I was crazy, but maybe this was one of the places where I learned to imagine all kinds of things – well, that and readin’ Louis L’amour or the Hardy Boys. I would bring my transistor radio and listen to the Georgia Tech football game as I played a game of my own. I’d hut the ball to myself, drop back to pass, throw the pass high enough where I could go catch it, make the catch deftly, and stiff arm four or five would-be tacklers all the way to the end zone, always divin’ across the goal line and rollin’ in the grass. Then I would place-kick the extra point before kickin’ off to Notre Dame or to Georgia or some other huge rival.”

I paused and looked at Corrina, who was soaking it all in with a soft smile.

“That reminds me of stories my mama and grandma would tell me,” she said, “only with them it was playing dolls back when they were little girls, or play cooking on a make-shift stove they built on the back porch. They said they would play and imagine all day. Mama called it ‘childlike wonder’ when a child could entertain himself or herself all day …”

“And without a care in the world, too,” I added. “That’s somethin’ we never want to lose. I like that, “childlike wonder.’ That’s what it is.”

“Pup,” she responded.

I always knew when she was about to say something profound. In those moments, I would listen and wait, no matter how long. Something I learned from Corrina was the value of just listening. 

My Uncle Jim, one of my favorite of Daddy’s older brothers, would tell me, “Boy, that’s why the Lord gave ya two ears and one mouth.” He had a matter-of-factly way of saying things. To make sure I listened to him, he would always begin with “Boy.” Sometimes I thought that was my name. 

I saw that advice in action with Corrina, not just by listening to her but by watching her listen when I got deep into a story. Then, when I’d bring the story back down to earth and look at her, the look in her eye told me that I was the only person in the world at that moment and that what I was saying was the most important thing she wanted and needed to hear. 

I know we’ve said that before about Corrina, but some things cannot be overstated. And that’s one of them. That was part of the magic of Corrina. I’m not even sure it was something she was taught; actually, I don’t believe you can teach that. It comes from a spring down deep within you, and either you have it or you don’t.

I listened as Corrina began her thought just by announcing ‘Pup’ on my vacant lot.

She said, “Pup, I think that what we’re talking about is something that you and I have – I mean, what we have found together this summer. When we are side by side, it’s as if nobody else is in the room, and we can say what we want. We can discuss life. We can laugh at things, especially all your stories about Doocy and your boys on the job and boys at the Y. You have so many stories to tell, and every day we get together and get away from the job and away from the house, it’s as if I get to read a new book. Sometimes the book is an adventure, sometimes a romance …”

“My favorite ones,” I said, with a laugh, and she nudged me playfully.

“… and sometimes there may be a little tragedy, but when there is, your faith always seems to cancel it out. Tragedy can’t win out where there’s faith, and that’s something you have. What’s happening this summer is we are enjoying being young and embracing growing up together, which was completely unexpected when the summer started. We can take it one day at a time because neither of us knows what tomorrow holds.”

She hesitated, and I could tell she had a question.

VACANT LOT continues next week

Coach Steven Ray Bowen served as a teacher and basketball coach at Red Oak High from 1998-2012 and recently spent two years teaching and coaching at Ferris. He and his wife Marilyn (the “amazin’ blonde”) served many years with the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl/Ovilla Roads, but now spend time evangelizing in several states in addition to Coach’s work as a writer and author, including the writing of the ongoing novel/memoir here in the Press. Call or text (972) 824-5197, or email coachbowen1984@gmail.com, or see frontporchgospel.com.