FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 98

My heart skipped a beat when I saw that it was Dixie. She had only been out on the job once before, and that was one afternoon to get Pee Wee for them to drive over to Wedowee to get some steaks at the meat market there. I knew that could be why she drove out on that Saturday, but I could feel it wasn’t.

Dixie pulled up and sat in the car a moment before getting out, giving Pee Wee time to walk over to the car, half a piece of cake still in his hand.

I watched as he leaned down to talk to Dixie through the open window. Dee (as Pee Wee called her) said something to Pee Wee in a low voice, and I could see all the air go out of Pee Wee at once.

When he turned and looked at me, I knew.

I walked over toward Pee Wee as Dixie got out of the car. I think Corrina walked over with me; I can’t be sure because my mind had already begun a journey to another world. Everybody suddenly was quiet. It was as if they knew the moment needed respect. It was in the air.

Pee Wee was quick-witted, and he was never without a rebuttal and a word, but when he turned to me, I could tell he could not get any words to come out. I spoke up for him.

“Is it Mama?” I asked.

I had never seen Pee Wee cry, but suddenly, his eyes turned blood red, and tears bubbled up. The six-foot-two-inch giant of a man held it together as best he could. Dixie didn’t. She cried, and Pee Wee put his arm around her, laid his cake on the car hood, and said the words I had dreaded hearing for over a year. His voice cracked.

“Pup, your mama’s gone. I’m sorry, Pup. Miss Louise’s gone.”

I am sure Pee Wee said more, putting his arm around me to console me. The scene became a blur. I remember Red saying something, and Mrs. McClain grabbed Corrina and held her tight, trying to protect her gentle heart. My clearest memory is that of Doocy. He didn’t know what to do or say, and I think it was the first time I saw him look awkward. He always knew the best things to say, or the worst, depending on the occasion, but he was as out of place in that moment as he would’ve been in a tuxedo shop.

I stepped back as Pee Wee pulled his arm away – not knowing what else to do – and I stumbled over a piece of brick, and that seemed to jar Doocy. He jumped up and was right there to catch me, although I wouldn’t have fallen. He then did the only thing he knew to do: He reached out his webbed right hand, and he took my hand in his, swallowing it up as if it was the hand of a five-year-old, and he said, “Pups, t’Breeze don’t know whut the Lawd’s thankin’, but He’ll take yuh in his’n arms t’night,” and his eyes, too, were as red as the sunset. Usually all you could see were the whites of his eyes staring at you like two big icebergs coming at you straight out of the ocean, but those whites were now red as the moon on an uncertain hazy night.

I tried thanking everybody for the birthday cake, said – or whispered, I don’t know – “Love ya’ll,” then made it over to the Nova sitting lonely between the red clay drive and the green grass by the white picket fence. Corrina left her mama quickly and came straight to me. She didn’t say a word, a thousand tears were speaking for her, and she reached her arms around me, and she held on as if for dear life. She held me like she held Mama the last night she saw her. Men can’t cry like women, so I held mine in as much as possible. Corrina’s cry was a soft sob. I think now that it was a sweet cry, the cry of a broken heart. The only words she could muster were, “So sorry, Pup, so sorry.”

I was able to reply, “I’m sorry for you, too, sweetie, she loved you so.” Seeing and feeling her in that moment, her innocent heart beating against my chest, I wondered if I did the right thing bringing her into a world doomed for heartbreak.

For a minute, we stood in that embrace. I held her softly with my little strength. It seemed fitting that we were together when the world stood still and became quiet. All of the summer of ’73 gathered around us, mourned for us in silence. Corrina let go of me but still had ahold of my hand, stepped back.

“Pup, you’ve got to go,” she said in a broken voice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a sadder voice than I did at that moment.

I reached into my back pocket and got the rag I carried and tried to clean up her face. She continued holding my hand as I got in the car.

“It’ll be all right, Corinna; Mama’s not hurtin’ anymore.”

I knew I had to leave while I could. I remember her saying, “Love you, Billy Ray, you know that.” I reached my hand out to her once more, and she squeezed it, then stood and watched as I drove away. I could see her in my rearview mirror, still standing where I left her, the blue rag I left for her in her hand. Behind her was that quiet crowd bereft of a dry eye among any of them, including the roughest and toughest men I’d ever known who had set out months ago to teach me to be a man.

Now I had no choice.

Turning the curve at the bottom of the dirt hill, I wished that the job on top of that iconic hill wasn’t quiet, I wished there would be chatter and that Red would be hollering at me about why that mud wasn’t made yet and up on that wall, or that Doocy was lamenting “Pups, whut cha done gone and done, huh, whut cha done?” so that all would be right in our world again.

Who can tell the thoughts of a 17-year-old young man in those moments? It was his birthday – August 4, 1973 – and the woman who gave the young man life seventeen years before had now left him alone. He had driven down that red-dirt road a hundred times that summer, but he’d never driven it without his Mama waiting for him when he got home.

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.