FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 78

“Did you ever tell Corrina the hard part about your daddy, Popman?” Cheyenne asked. “Even though you're telling the story to me now, it seems you are almost putting it off, as if you don’t want to ruin your story.”

I had to work that thought in my mind because I knew he was onto something. It is true that when you tell a story that is as real and as close to your heart as Daddy’s story, you want it to be a feel-good story, not a tragic one. You understand what you have to do, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I tried not to overthink the dilemma and just tell what happened.

“I did tell her, Cheyenne,” I said, “or Mama and I told her. And it was one of the hardest things about the summer because Corrina was so innocent. You didn’t want to put that burden on her. She was like a rose jus’ comin’ into bloom, and you didn’t want the sun shinin’ down on it too hard. But Corrina was right in what she told me, too. She had grown. It was like the title of the great 1920s novel, it was the “age of innocence,” and it is the age of growin’ up. I am not sure you can ever grow up if you don’t deal with some of the realities; and Corrina was about to have to deal with them almost as much as me. I had to think it through that summer to try to figure out if I really wanted to go into that dark of a place, and when the time came, I think it just happened. She had to know. She had to know because of me, and I think she had to know because of Mama.”

With that, I began opening the door for Cheyenne just as I had for Corrina Belle McClain half a century before.

It would be the next Friday, the third Friday that Corrina and I had gone to see Mama together. I saw Corrina every day that week, at least for a few minutes, and, as before, she beat me in bringing it up that she hoped we’d be able to go see Mama again. I was glad she did, not only because that would give us another chance to be together and keep figuring life out together, and ourselves, but also because Mama had been fading faster with each day.

It wasn’t too late in the evening when we got to the house. We were hoping we would still have time to to go eat at the Pizza Villa – which became our favorite place during the summer – even though we didn’t know how late it would be after we visited with Mama. When we got to the house, I asked Corrina if she minded if I could show her something else? She agreed, of course, but we ducked our heads in the door to make sure Mama was okay and told her we’d be back in a little while and that I wanted to show Corrina something. It was good timing because Grandma was there, and she was bathing Mama with a warm wash rag, which made her feel better. Her head hurt a good bit, and the warm rag would soothe the pain. At night, after Grandma left, I often put a hot rag on her head, and sometimes it would help her drift off to sleep. I would sit and think and watch Mama bring in and out on some of those nights, and wonder. Those were the nights the tears would visit most often.

Mama said she’d be anxious for us to get back, and I assured her we would try not to be too long. Corrina and I walked up the hill and over to the vacant lot again, and when we got to the spot where we had talked so much the previous Friday, we stopped. Corrina looked at me, waiting for me to open the book again and tell her our story. She had come to expect it by then.

“What I didn’t show you last week was what was over the hill there,” I said, pointing at the red brick building that sat almost in a hole on the other side of the lot. “That’s the fire station, and I think it had as much to do with our growin’ up as this vacant lot.”

Corrina listened in her special way as I explained that we didn’t have a television until I was about 12. For entertainment, I read a great deal – the Hardy Boys and Louis L’amour, in particular – and I shot baskets at our goal out by the barn, of course, and sometimes down at the Whatley’s since their goal was better. And, of course, we played those imaginary football games in the vacant lot. That was a great deal of our growing up when we weren’t going to church or playing basketball at the Y. The Y owned us more than any one place in LaGrange, Georgia – even more than the church as far as the time spent there – but we had other domains that helped us grow up.

“What I would do durin’ the summer, Corrina, is go over to the fire station and watch movies, since we didn’t have a television. I loved goin’ at noon for their ‘Armchair Playhouse,’ and I’d get there early, buy me a Coca-Cola or Pepsi and a Baby Ruth from their little store in the lobby. Then, I’d sit in their most comfortable seat. The funny thing was the firemen never made me move out of the good chair and never made me feel unwelcome. Sometimes they’d have to go to a fire, and I saw them slide down the pole to where the firetruck was many times, and after the excitement, I’d get back in my seat, watch the movie, and ‘mind the store.’

“Of all the movies I watched, I can only remember one particular one. This one stuck with me through all the years. It was funny that it was the only one I can remember distinctly. It was about an old man named Santiago who went fishin’ off of the Cuban coast. He was a bad luck fisherman, salao, they called it, which was the worst kind of bad luck. He hadn’t caught a fish in over eighty days, and he was determined to catch one. He had to prove to the town and prove to himself that he wasn’t a bad luck fisherman after all.”

The movie finally dawned on Corrina, and she said, “Oh, The Old Man and the Sea! We read that novel when I was a freshman.”

I smiled, “That’s right. For some reason, we never read the book in school, but the movie was good. Do you remember how the old man went out to sea and caught that marlin, Corrina?”

Corrina nodded.

“That’s right,” she said, “and he was so beaten up and sunburned and hurting, but he never gave up. That impressed me when we read the book. I’d never read a book where a man had to overcome so much physical torture, and all that just to catch a fish. But we didn’t dig into it too much. I’m going to have to go back and read it again now.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m not sure it was jus’ to catch a fish. I’ve thought about the old man through the years, and I think it was more about himself than jus’ the fish. He had to prove to himself that he could do it. Even though his hands were bloody and torn, and they got worse every time the marlin would relax and then take off a hundred miles an hour, and that fishin’ cord would run through his hands, tearin’ his flesh. His hands were a bloody mess, and the sun beat down on him, and his back was cramped so bad from holdin’ the line for so long, for two or three days. Then, of course, the sharks would get his marlin in the end, but he never gave up, and he never stopped tryin’, he jus’ laid it all out there and fought with every ounce of energy he had. He was Joe Frazier with a fishin’ rod,” I said, smiling. I knew Corrina probably didn’t know Joe Frazier, so I added, “I’ll tell you about him later. Your daddy will tell you, too. Frazier is a great boxer, tough as elephant’s skin, and that’s how the old man was.”

Corrina looked up at me, and I could see an epiphany coming, “Oh, Pup, you remembered that story because that’s how you’ve seen life through all the years, right? You related to it, you saw life almost the way the old man did. It was as if you’ve been fishing right alongside Santiago all your years.”

She had to stop to think, then continued.

“Pup,” she said, “do you ever think that nobody’s with you, that you’re kind of in that boat like that all by yourself. You’ve had your dad’s sickness, now your mom, you have to feel alone sometimes.”

I nodded, “Probably so,” I said, “it’s not that I think about it a lot. That’s why I have the vacant lot, and the Y, and church …”

“And me!” Corrina said emphatically, “you have me, Billy Ray. Do you remember that the old man always had the boy back home, and the boy always believed in him? Well, Pup, I’m that boy, and you know with me you’ll always have somebody who believes in you, somebody always pullin’ for you, always.”

I couldn’t resist reaching over and holding Corrina that evening. I don’t know how long we stood there holding each other, looking out over the top of the old fire station that still sat below the lot as if we were looking out over our lives together.

After a moment, I said, “Just one thing, ‘bout that boy in the movie. You sure are a lot prettier than what he was.”

“Well, I sure hope so,” she snapped. The two of us laughed that evening, and we held hands, and each other, and there wasn’t a care in the world, again, just for a while, and it seemed that the sun had never beaten down on me, and my hands had never been bloody and my back tired and achy, and there never was a time, ever, when nobody believed in me.

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.