Part One
Doug was carrying a cup of coffee and a legal
pad. He came around a corner and saw Foy.
“Hey Buddy, how’s it going? You gettin
settled?”
“Yeah yeah, it’s nice. I’m finding my way
around. Hey, thanks again for…”
“Stop it! We’re lucky to have you. Some of the
stuff that’s been coming out of here has been embarrassing. So we need you. I’m
glad you’re here.”
He sipped from his mug as Foy managed to shrug
and nod at the same time.
“Oh, and I’m sorry about the cubicle. I wanted
to put you in a little office or something, but that’s all we have. I told
Rachel to put you somewhere quiet, over in the corner or somewhere out of the
way.”
“No no no, the cubicle is fine. I’ve been
reading Dilbert for years. Now I’m gonna know a little something about that
world.”
Doug chuckled. “Well, I hope it’s not that bad
around here - but yeah. So make yourself at home. Rachel will get some stuff for
you to work on. I’ll be talking to people over the next few weeks, telling them
that you’re here and what we want you to do. Pretty soon people will be bringing
you stuff all the time. Uh, you should only get things from department heads.
Don’t let anyone else con you into doing their writing for them.”
Foy nodded. “Okay.”
“Well, I guess that’s it. If you need anything,
check with Rachel or come by and talk with me if you want."
There wasn’t any work for him that first day,
so Foy wandered around and took stock of his new world. The cubicles formed a
kind of village, it seemed to him. People scurried by with papers and folders,
obviously doing important things. Well-dressed men paced the floors with
futuristic, wireless units sticking out of their ears, jabbering away to
invisible people. Men and women were hunched in front of computer screens, lost
in their work. The soft, tapping sound of keyboards was everywhere. It was
hypnotic and strangely compelling.
There was a nice break room with soda and candy
machines, a refrigerator, a microwave, and several coffee pots. One wall was
glass so that the movement and bustle of the office was visible while you ate or
drank your coffee. Foy chose a table in the corner and quietly ate a sandwich
for lunch. He finished without anyone saying anything to him, though he got a
few polite nods of acknowledgment. As he was getting ready to leave, a handsome
man with thick, stylish hair and an expensive suit entered, spotted him, and
came over to his table. He held out his hand and flashed a perfect smile.
“Hi there. Dwayne Richardson. You new?”
“Foy Davis. Yeah, first day.”
“Oh yeah? Where you working? What do you do?”
“Hmm. You know, I’m not sure what it’s called.
Doug brought me on. I think that I edit and uh, you know go over anything
written that goes out to the public or the stockholders or just anything
official like that.”
“Interesting. Never heard of that before.
Sounds like the kind of thing Doug would come up with. One of his pet projects
or whatever. But hey, when you’re the boss you call the shots. Am I right?”
Foy forced his mouth into a smile and nodded
with feigned enthusiasm. “I guess so. He’s the man.”
Dwayne held out an index finger, whirled it in
several tight circles, and said, “So what did you do before this?”
It was a complex question for Foy, and he
considered how to answer it. He decided that he was going to ignore the ministry
part of his life and start fresh.
“Mostly writing. Writing things. Little of this
– little of that.”
Even as he said this, Foy realized it sounded
like pure bullshit.
Dwayne rubbed his chin and looked at Foy like
he was trying to figure him out.
“Writing, huh? Have anything published?”
Foy made an exaggerated frown, nodded, and
tried to move quickly past this. “Yeah, a book. Some magazine stuff here and
there. No big deal.”
Dwayne looked pleasantly surprised. “Oh yeah?
You wrote a book? A real writer. Hey, writing is, uh…I don’t write myself, but I
like to read. Read all the time – novels and that kind of thing. And some other
stuff - magazines and sports mostly.“
Foy nodded seriously. “Yeah, reading’s…great…
you know.”
Dwayne pointed at him, making his index finger
into a little gun. “Hey, without anyone to read, where would the writers be? Am
I wrong?” He made a couple of clicks with his mouth that sounded like he was
cocking the hammer on his imaginary gun.
Foy decided he wanted to get out of this
conversation as quickly as possible. Dwayne was like a cartoon character, and
Foy had known many men like him. A long line of ministers and salesmen who had
crafted personalities and haircuts to match them. He took a long, deliberate
look at his watch and said, “That’s definitely, uh, one way to think about it, I
guess. Gotta have those readers. Absolutely. Listen, I need to…”
Dwayne cut him off before he could make up a
lie that would get him out of the conversation.
“I really love National Geographic. Fascinating
- all those weird cultures and people with paint and stuff on their faces.” He
fluttered his hand in front of his face. “Amazing. You ever write for anything
like that?”
Foy chuckled humbly. “Oh, no. Nothing that
exciting.”
Dwayne looked at him for a second or two,
smiling. Then he nodded as if to indicate that he had a good sense of the basic
nature and makeup of the man before him.
“Okay, Foy Davis. Listen, stop by my desk
sometime, and let’s have lunch.”
Foy hesitated and Dwayne continued. “Tomorrow
I’m free. Next day, next week, whenever. But I want to get to know you, okay?”
Dwayne made the little gun with his finger
again, pursed his lips, and made a popping sound.
As Foy left the break room he could hear Dwayne
talking to someone else until the door closed behind him and cut off the sound.
“Charlotte, you broke my heart!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Because I was looking all over for you at the
picnic. I can’t believe you weren’t there. I was dying for a piece of that
chocolate cake you brought last year.”
********
For the next couple of weeks, Foy watched
Dwayne with a voyeuristic fascination. He seemed to be everywhere, and he was
never without a smile and a friendly comment. He flirted gently with some of the
women, but he never pushed it too far. He did nice things for people around the
office. He brought a card for a woman on her birthday, and he always offered to
get you a cup of coffee if he was going to the break room. He never forgot
anyone’s name or an important detail from his co-workers’ lives. He dropped by
Foy’s cubicle now and then with a joke or to chat briefly about something from
the news. He had easy-going opinions on everything but was never controversial.
At first Foy was annoyed by him and suspicious.
He was always spouting trite phrases, proverbs, and bits of folk wisdom. He
winked a lot, made clicks with his tongue, and seemed to have mastered several
different whistling noises. But he was nice and seemed harmless enough. He was
shallow, but apparently sincerely shallow.
They had lunch together at a nearby
delicatessen. Dwayne insisted on paying. While they ate he maintained a steady
stream of pleasing conversation. He told great jokes, and Foy laughed hard at
some of them. He found himself relaxing and warming up to Dwayne. He wasn’t such
a bad guy.
On one of Dwayne’s visits to Foy’s cubicle, Foy
mentioned that one of his daughters was having some troubles at school. Dwayne
pulled up a chair, looking genuinely concerned. He asked for details, and before
long Foy found himself telling him more than he probably should have.
Dwayne listened seriously, and when he left, he
pointed his finger gun at Foy and said, “Listen, I’ll be keeping you and your
daughter in my prayers, okay?”
“Thanks,” said Foy, looking closely at him. “I
didn’t know you were religious.”
“Oh yeah, we go to church every Sunday. I don’t
know how Samantha and I would make it without our faith. Now listen, I’m serious
about praying for your daughter. I hate it when people say that, but you get the
feeling they don’t really mean it. I’m going to pray for your daughter tonight.
And our church will pray for her on Sunday. I’ll just tell them there is a girl
who needs our prayers.”
Foy was shocked to hear this. It was exactly
the sort of thing he used to say to people when he was a minister. He always
felt that telling people you would pray for them had a phony feel to it. As a
minister, he had carried around a horror that prayer might simply be a
convenient way to end an uncomfortable conversation. So many times he had felt
compelled to offer a similar disclaimer when he spoke about prayer.
But clearly Dwayne was sincere in his offer to
pray. This was a side of Dwayne that he had not seen before, and he was deeply
moved.
He watched Dwayne’s back as he walked down the
hallway between the cubicles.
“Well, he cares about people. He really does.
And he certainly does more for others around here than I do. So, he’s a little
annoying to me. So what? That’s my problem, not his. He’s a good guy.”
Part two is coming soon.
rlp
Part Two
On a Monday morning, Dwayne asked Foy if he
wanted to grab a cup of coffee. When Foy got to the break room, Dwayne was
already there and was holding two Styrofoam cups. They sat by the Coke machine,
and Dwayne pushed a cup across the table for Foy.
“You take it black, right?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
There were a couple of other people in the
break room, but one was engrossed in a book, and the other was listening to his
iPod. They chatted for a few minutes about the office, the NBA, the current
political situation, and some less memorable things. Dwayne looked like he had
something on his mind, and finally he leaned forward and put his weight on his
elbows.
“Foy, there’s something important I want to
talk to you about.”
“Sure Dwayne, what’s up?”
“Foy, if you were to die tonight – God knows I
pray you don’t, and you probably won’t – but if you were to die tonight, do you
know for sure that you would go to heaven?”
Foy blinked, momentarily disoriented. Dwayne
had suddenly disgorged this incredibly complex and personal issue along with all
of its emotional and intellectual ramifications. It seemed like such a strange
thing to do and so out of place. It was as if Dwayne had hoisted a live sea
turtle onto the tabletop, then sat back waiting for Foy to do something. If
there’s a sea turtle on the table, bawling and scrabbling around with its
flippers, you have to deal with it.
Foy’s reaction was to push his seat back a
little, but Dwayne sat there calmly, watching him and waiting for a reply. He
clearly assumed that Foy would have a ready answer to this question, and that
he would be willing to share it with a man who was an acquaintance at best.
Foy felt a shock to his system that rendered
him speechless. He gathered himself and tried to think of something to say, but
a flood of old memories poured out of his unconscious mind and shut him down.
The memories came so fast that he had trouble processing them.
He saw a man at church standing before a room
full of teen-agers.
Ask them if they
die tonight do they know for sure they’ll go to heaven. That’s the best way to
get started talking about this with someone. If they say they’re going to heaven
because they are a good person, use Romans 3:23 – “for all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God.” On the other hand, if they…
He saw himself as a 4th grader,
somehow managing to talk Timmy, the boy next door, into saying the sinner’s
prayer while they walked to school one morning. He had used that same line, and
the two of them knelt by the driveway of a house where they had played “ding
dong ditch it” only the day before. Timmy confessed his sins and asked Jesus to
come into his heart. When they rose to their feet, Foy had a feeling of being
perfectly right with the world. He was one of God’s partners, doing good and
helping people. The next Sunday he checked “led someone to the Lord” on his
offering envelope and got a huge hug from his Sunday school teacher, who had to
wipe tears from her eyes.
Again he saw himself under a huge tent at a
revival meeting, counseling some of the people who streamed forward during the
altar call.
Did you confess
your sins and ask Jesus to come into your heart? Not sure? Okay, let’s pray
together. I’ll pray if you like, and you can just repeat after me. “Dear Jesus…
Those old days were long gone, and Foy had
forgotten what it was like to carry that burden. If you truly love people, you
don’t want them to go to hell. So you find a way – any way you can – to tell
them that Jesus died for their sins. How can you not share such good news with
people? How can you not want to save them from hell?
Ironically, it was that very compassion that
finally broke him. Compassion drove him to take responsibility for too many
people. And then he lost any real feeling for them beyond his need to get them
to make religious commitments. The human heart cannot love the whole world. And
if you try to put the whole world into your heart, you will eventually lose
touch with your own humanity
His mind came back to the present and there was
Dwayne sitting in front of him, waiting, a little puzzled that he was taking so
long to reply.
“Foy, are you okay? I was just asking you if
you know that Jesus died for your sins?”
Foy was dazed and still disoriented. “Yeah,
yeah I know what you’re saying, or at least I think I know what you’re trying to
say. I just…wait a second and let me think. I don’t know what to say to you.”
Foy could feel anger rising inside him. He
didn’t ask for this conversation, and he didn’t give Dwayne permission to open
up such a sensitive subject.
How dare he? What
gives him the right to say things like this to people without even taking the
time to get to know them?
He felt a brief urge to give a snide response.
Are you kidding me?
This is like asking Gary Kasparov if he’s ever heard of the Queen’s Gambit. I
know this opening line. Hell, I know five or six that are a lot smoother. I
lived with this shit for years. I know all about your Jesus and how much you say
you love him. I know the Bible verses from Romans you use to back this up, and I
know that little picture with the gulf of sin between man and God and the cross
making a little bridge across it. I know the songs you sing at your church and
how you glorify the people you call soul winners. I know all of it.
God wants
everything. Do you hear me? EVERYTHING. That’s what your book says. He’ll take
everything, even your whole heart. But somehow it all comes down to saying the
sinner’s prayer for you. Get them to say the prayer. Get them to sign on the
line that is dotted.
At the same time, he had the strangest feeling
of kinship with Dwayne, as if they shared the same history. Like they were
brothers. He knew the burden Dwayne was carrying. And he wondered if Dwayne had
lost his real compassion under that burden, as he once had. He wanted to put his
arms around Dwayne and say, “Let go of your need to get people to say things.
Just live well and tell your story when asked.”
But there’s no way
he will hear me. This is what he’s been told, and this is what he believes.
There’s no way for him to be saved except to go through this from the beginning
to the end. He can’t hear anything else. I never could.
And anyway, what
the hell do I know about any of it? Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’ll die, and I’ll
meet Jesus on a cloud or something and he’ll say, “Whatever happened to you? You
were such a spiritual warrior, sold out, on fire and all of that. Fine, come on
into heaven since you said the sinner’s prayer when you were nine, but I must
say I’m very disappointed in you, Foy.”
Dwayne looked agitated and concerned at Foy’s
long silence.
“Foy? FOY?”
Foy brought his eyes into focus on Dwayne’s
face. He couldn’t think of anything to say to him.
Dwayne blew some air out of his mouth. “Look
man, if I offended you in some way, I’m sorry. I really am. Maybe I don’t know
you well enough yet to talk about this. But, you know, this is important. You
have kids, and… Look, there’s a battle going on – spiritual warfare. Angels and
demons battling and your soul is the prize. So if you ever want to talk about
this, I would love to help you understand that Jesus loves you so much. He died
for you, man. He really did.”
God, I remember all
of this. He told me the truth, and now he has to shake the dust off his feet and
move on. You can’t save everyone, you know?
Dwayne got up, crushed his coffee cup and
headed for the trash can. Foy called out to him, impulsively.
“Dwayne.”
Dwayne stopped and turned around. He lifted his
chin, inviting Foy to speak further.
“Thanks. I think I know what you’re saying, and
I know that, uh, this is important to you and you needed to tell me. I can’t
answer your question, but I know you care about people. Just, don’t lose that,
okay?”
Dwayne’s perfect smile popped onto his face. He
pointed his finger gun at Foy.
“Okay buddy. I love you in Christ, and I’m
always here for you. Don’t forget that.”
He winked and walked out the door.
Foy put his chin in his hand and looked around.
There was a plastic glass on the table filled with straws. He pulled one out and
unwrapped it, then he folded the paper wrapper back and forth, making a little
accordion. He pulled it apart
and pushed it together repeatedly while softly singing a little song.
“Blow the man down, dada, blow the man down. Yo
ho, blow the man down.”
I’m all alone in a
world full of people who are all alone. And I don’t have anything to give anyone
anymore, except for things of the body.
rlp
Note: The
story originally appeared in two parts. You can read the comments for part two
here.
