FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) part 104

About halfway through Doocy’s personal storytelling festival, the black Studebaker had driven up; so, the McClain family got to hear the ending, just like the day Doocy held court in the back of the red work truck on the red-dirt road down by the pond and in front of what one day would be the house my tomboy friend Alane and her husband Roger would build.

We were so mesmerized by the story that, while we noted they drove up, we didn’t even stop to pay it much attention. They laughed, too – more at the carrying all the nuts that worked out on that job did more than the story, I think – and we all smiled at them as we jumped up when Judge Red threw down his gavel and sentenced us all to three more hours of work, “e’en if we have to do it in the dark!”

Once we were back to work on the porch and the steps, our special first family milled around with odds and ends and stood back some watching the finishing touches to the job. The steps were coming along and were only a day or two from being complete. I didn’t want Red to get after me on my last day, so I settled for just sneaking a glance at Corrina – like on that very first day – then hustled to help Doocy get the mud out before I broke off to help joint the sides of the steps where Pee Wee and Charlie were working.

About an hour after we got back to work, the song “Midnight Train to Georgia” came on for what I believe was the first time in the summer since it had just come out right after Mama died, maybe the 7th or 8th day of August.

Red had turned the radio up loud when we got back on the job, I figured to keep us from rehearsing Doocy’s story and sending him further into bankruptcy.  The song came on, and I could not help but pause from jointing the wall to listen closely. Even in that moment, I knew it was a fitting benediction to our summer of ’73.

Through the summer, Pee Wee and I had talked a number of times about all the songs that talked about Georgia. I would tell Pee Wee about mine and Corrina’s conversations about songs , and he took a special interest in that.

We were all in the front of the house working on the porch as the midnight train rolled melodiously through Georgia that morning. Pee Wee and Charlie were laying brick on the circular steps that led up to what Doocy loved to call “Pupsie’s Palace” (when the McClains weren’t around). Red was laying the border for the palace’s brick porch.

We didn’t even slow down when the McClains walked up. We were trying to make up for lost time, and just when it looked as if we were going to get on a roll and make some progress, the song came on. I glanced back to where Corrina was standing by one of the azaleas and nodded toward the radio. Corrina came and stood nearby me while we listened, careful to stay out of the way. The words hit home again, just as the first time we heard the song a week or so prior. Gladys Knight and the Pips told of a man leaving on a midnight train just “to find a simpler place and time.” I smiled at that. I had already found that, I thought, but knew I might need to find it again.

Ms. Knight – I told Cheyenne, deviating a moment from our story – lived to sing the song at its 50th anniversary, which made me feel good. When I heard the song that August 17 morning, it hit me just like that ton of brick stacked in Mr. McClain’s chimney in the back of the house. When the narrator of the song goes back – Miss Knight says – there would be somebody by his side.

No, he wouldn’t go back alone on that midnight train.

That sent chills through me even as I knelt and jointed the side of those brick steps, Corrina standing ten feet from me within my line of vision.

“Cheyenne,” I said, “I promise that every trowel stopped as soon as she and the Pips – the real ones – started singing. The laborers quit haulin’ and stackin’ the brick, Doocy jus’ leaned casual-like on the long-handled shovel stickin’ out of the wheelbarrow and started hummin’ along with Ms. Knight as if he’d known the song his whole life; and while he hummed he was lookin’ and grinnin’ at me as if I was the best friend he ever had, which I probably was. He could do more things at once better than anybody I ever saw, and sometimes he could do less.

“When the midnight train had stopped,” I continued after a meditative pause, “Doocy let loose of that shovel, walked over real fast-like and turned the radio way down, and then walked over to me. I was down on one knee jointin’ the lower courses of the steps and tried not to look at him when he came over.

“As you would expect,” I said, “another iconic moment to wrap up the summer was about to come.”

Doocy chuckled, and everybody there waited. He came up close enough to touch me, kneeled down on a knee, and with a tear real as a Georgia rain rolling down his face, he said,

“Pups, t’Breeze want yuh t’comes back …”

He had to pause. I had never seen him like this before. Even when Mama died, he just got quiet, didn’t say much, except, “Doocy’ll be here, yuh know thet, Pup.”

He had to say the words this time. I think the long story he told and got us all to laughing so hard was his way to keep from having to say what he really wanted to say.

But Gladys Knight didn’t let him get off that easy.

He held everythin’ together as best he could – he had to reach down deep, you know – and then he resumed:

“Doocy want yuh t’comes back home, Pups.”

Another pause.

“The Breeze wants yuh to catch t’very firse midnight train back home to Gawgia thet you hear.”

He put his webbed hand on my shoulder – I think it weighed ten pounds – and when everybody saw the tear on his mud-stained cheek – well, I think the world stopped right in its tracks.

After a few moments, he tried to lighten the mood, of course, and said, louder, “When yuh hears thet whistle jus’-ta-blowin’, Pups, yuh comes on back to d’Breeze, d’Cool Breeze!” Then he jumped up laughing and grabbed the wheelbarrow to push it to the mixer, finishing his speech on the run, “and yuh comes back t’see thet li’l pritty sump’m else, too.”

He glanced over at you-know-who, too, and strolled off chucklin’.

“She’s still you-know-who, isn’t she, Popman, just like in the beginning,” Cheyenne said, taking it all in.

I smiled, and nodded.

“But, Cheyenne, when I looked up and my eyes met Corrina’s, somethin’ must’ve really hit her real hard. She was wiping her eyes, and Mrs. McClain walked over and had a tight hold on her baby girl, little Alane holding onto her Mama, too. Mrs. Mac had a gift. It was clear where Corrina got hers from.”

Then I breathed deeply and paused, looking out at the tall pines waving slightly in the breeze.

“A little bit of Mrs. Mac must’ve rubbed off on ever’body she ever met, I guess,” I said, “But Corrina – she got the most.”

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.