FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 81

Tears gathered, and she could go no further.

Corrina got up and hugged Mama again, and, for the first time that I can remember, they cried together. I don’t know if Mama had ever told that whole story. Those were the things you seldom talk about. You don’t bring them up. That generation seemed to pretend things never happened. I think we were taught that in our generation – not in words but by silence. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.

People would say, “How are you?” and you’d say, “I’m okay, thanks for askin’.”

They were doing the best they could; but you would go on with your life trying to forget somehow that the stars had fallen right out of the sky. I cannot speak for all decades, but the decades of the 60s and 70s had those unspoken rules, rules that I never realized until looking back and surveying that time.

“Cheyenne,” I said as we rehearsed those tragic days, “you are different in that way. You’ve asked the hard questions. I think you’re a lot like your Grandpa Zeke who always tried to help other people.” Then I added, “when he was well.”

Mama brushed her tears away after a minute. Corrina leaned up, still holding her hand, tightly now, not gently as before. Mama turned to me.

“Will you tell the rest, Billy Ray?”

I looked at Corrina for approval because this was hers and Mama’s time. She nodded, but I still said to Mama,

“Mama, I don’t know if you need to take that road tonight, do you?”

Mama reached over to me, took my hand resting on the bed, and said, “If not now, Billy Ray, when?”

That told me what I needed to know. She wanted to make up for all the things left unspoken, not that she had to, but it was important to her.

This moment was one of those that required a deep breath and a gathering of thoughts from a past that had lain undisturbed for what seemed like an eternity.

“I don’t remember anythin’ of that mornin’,” I began. “I expect it went jus’ like any other. Daddy always made sure I got my book satchel and all my books were packed up and that I had my lunch money and my coat and gloves because it was almost Christmas. It was cold the morning of December 12,” I said with a shiver and a smile that was probably more sad than happy.

I watched Mama as I spoke, and she lay still, her eyes closed, but I could tell she was listening. Corrina alternated between looking at me as I told the story that had never been told and watching to ensure Mama was okay.

“I must have walked to school, although I rode my bicycle on many days. If so, I would have had to go back later to get my bike. Sixth-grade class went along as always. It was jus’ another day, one out of ten thousand, until fairly early in the mornin’, maybe between 10 and 11 a.m. That’s when all of our worlds came crashin’ down.”

My words suddenly became slower, and I re-entered the mind and body of that helpless eleven-year-old whose life would never be the same after that morning.

“There was a knock at the classroom door, and my teacher – sweet Mrs. Thrash, another precious God-send – went to the door, stepped out into the hallway for a few moments talkin’ to someone, then came back into the room, her steps slow as if she was unsure where to go.”

Ah, I can remember that now, those steps that crawled toward the row where I was sittin’.” It was almost as if I was being hypnotized and carried back to that classroom and to that moment before innocence left and the world rushed in like an ocean's tide.

“I believe I was on the third row from the door, and I was three-quarters of the way back. She came toward my row, then called my name. I started to get up and go to her, but she stopped me, and said, ‘Billy Ray, you’ll need to take your books with you.’

“It is hard to tell the story of those moments, Corrina,” I said, glancing at the dark-haired beauty, sitting motionless in Mama’s old rocking chair, she, too, reliving those moments. It was another of our time-in-a-bottle moments but one we wished we would not have to relive.

“I know as I tell this,” I said, “these are the final moments of true innocence for this 11-year-old.”

Another pause.

“Mrs. Thrash smiled softly as I walked toward the door, but her eyes were not smilin’. They were hurtin’. The room was as quiet as it had ever been, as if the whole class knew this was not the norm. When I got to the hallway, my auburn-headed Uncle River was standin’ there waitin’ on me. He said, ‘Billy Ray, I need to take you home.’ That wasn’t all he said, but I remember thinking I didn’t want to go home. It wasn’t that I loved school, but at that moment, school was where I was supposed to be. I remember that thought, but I don’t think I had time to ask why I was leaving.

“Uncle River must’ve seen my confusion, because he then said something else. He added as ominous a sentence as I’ve ever heard: ‘Your daddy’s hurt himself,’ he said. It didn’t register to me what that meant, except that I had flashbacks to bein’ at the vacant lot and seein’ Daddy taken away in the ambulance, and I’d seen other things, too. That was what I expected.

“Uncle River had parked on the south side of the school. I always went in and out at the east end of the building. We got into the car, and we didn’t go home the way I would go, which was east toward Hillside, then turning back south after a block and going by the pond at the Hillside Mill. Uncle River turned instead onto Fourth Avenue – the street the church was on further up about a half mile – then he turned east on a street that ran parallel to the school, which you could see over your left shoulder if you looked back north. We drove down the street a ways, and Uncle River turned to me again as he drove. I don’t know if he put his hand on my shoulder or what, but I remember what he said.”

I paused there, even as I pause here in re-telling the story. I wished we could end the story here and the world would go back to spinning the way it should. But what Uncle River said changed that world. I wanted to stop and get off.

“He said, ‘Son, your daddy killed himself’ – or “Your daddy died,” I am not sure. I believe he used the word ‘killed.’ Then he added, ‘You’re goin’ to have to be strong for your mother.’”

“That moment even now – tellin’ it here for the first time – was like swords stickin’ all in your body. I can transport my entire bein’ to sittin’ in that front seat, and I remember holdin’ back my emotions because Uncle River had said, ‘You have to be strong for your mother,’ so I tried to be strong.”

I stopped momentarily and looked at both Mama and Corrina. Corrina still sat motionless, her eyes watery and ready to overflow. She looked as if all the air had gone out of her young body. Mama still lay with her eyes closed, but her lips creased just a little. I knew she felt for the young man she always called simply her “baby.”

I went on, slowly.

“This 11-year-old child … he thought that he didn’t need to cry, he needed to be strong, and bein’ strong meant that you don’t cry.”

I looked away. My eyes fixated on a quilt at the foot of the bed Mama had made years ago from old shirts from all of the family, including one of Daddy’s favorites. I kept my eyes on that old quilt as I relived the ending.

“We drove on for another minute, maybe, and I gave in to what a child of any age should. I began to cry softly. I sat there, put my hands over my face, and jus’ cried.

“I had lost my daddy, and the world slammed on its brakes and stopped.

“It has never been the same since, after 50 years. I cannot go back and tell the young 11-year-old that it’s goin’ to be all right because it isn’t, and I can’t wipe those tears away because his world has just collapsed around him.

“The saddest thing of all, I think …”

I took my time. The patterns in the quilt blurred into one, its colors like a kaleidoscope. 

“The saddest thing is that this innocent boy, in a brief moment, lost a piece of himself that he would never be able to get back, and there is nothin’ anybody can do to change it.”

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.