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Part Three of "Queen's Gambit" was originally published here. All three parts have been combined into one, but I've left this file here to preserve the comments.

Part two of "Queen's Gambit" was originally published here. All three parts have been combined into one, but I've left this file here to preserve the comments.

This story was originally published in 3 parts. All three have been combined in this location. Parts 2 and 3 remain in their original location to preserve the comments.

This story was originally written in two parts. I've combined them but kept part one online to preserve the comments. Click here to see the comments from part one.

Part One

Foy started noticing churches while he was driving. He hadn’t noticed churches for a long time, but suddenly he was seeing them again. A church would rush toward him, picking up speed, then whoosh by, slowing down as it moved down the street behind the car. Foy’s head would turn to follow the church, then snap back quickly so he wouldn’t crash into anything. Then he would sneak a peek in his rearview mirror and watch the church float lazily out of sight, like a barge going around the distant curve of a river.

The more he watched churches, the more they seemed like living creatures with personalities. There were stone churches on the corners of older neighborhoods, some of them erected in the 19^th century. Their solidity seemed to transcend movement and change, as if ancient hammers had pounded them into place to keep the town from blowing away like a tarp in the wind. Their windows aged slowly in their stone settings, looking out and up, scarcely noticing anything happening on the ground nearby. Social trends threw themselves like breakers at the foundations of these spiritual castles, eventually losing energy and folding themselves into whatever fading decade had given them birth.

There were old-fashioned, white clapboard, African American churches ferociously holding the ground where country met city. The buildings looked frail, like matchsticks, but the paint was fresh and the wood was in good repair. The energy from within these churches was astonishing. White gloves, carefully delivered Sunday school reports, hats with veils, and cardboard fans worked hand-in-hand with stylized sermons, swaying singers, and intoxicating organ music to hold the modern world at bay by the sheer force of their determination to overcome.

The quiet and tired suburban brick churches of the 60s and 70s seemed the most at risk. Their functional architecture and weary, middle-class apathy made them appear to be on life support. You wondered how many more years their fathers would fire up the family car and shout for the kids to hurry so they wouldn’t be late for Sunday school.

Occasionally Foy would see an Episcopal church whose careful beauty would cause his heart to break with joy. He took pride in these churches from afar, like a collector of rare and beautiful things. Their Anglican heritage provided an appreciation for architecture, and an influx of American nature lovers who had only just discovered Saint Francis provided the energy for nurturing the grounds around the buildings.

Foy would slow his car when he passed one of these churches, looking at them the way you look at your childhood home if you drive by it after many years. He wanted to go inside but was afraid to ask. Sometimes he would sit on the curb across the street, letting his eyes follow the steps to the heavy, wooden door and then wander upwards past the windows to the roof, and then – if the church had one – to the bell tower.

He followed his urge to look at churches without introspection. If he had stopped to think about it, he might have recognized and perhaps resented the deep longing that was beginning to be born in his heart.

Foy did not plan to attend church that morning, but it was Sunday, and he happened to be out wearing long pants and a decent shirt. He was slowing down to take a look at an Episcopal church that had caught his eye a few days earlier when he noticed a sign that said worship began in half an hour. Moments later he had pulled into their parking lot, shut off his car, and was standing beside it looking around. There were only a few cars in the lot. Foy wondered which one belonged to the minister.

One of the cars was parked in a space close to the building. It was a few years old, sturdy and plain, and there were papers stacked on the dashboard.

“I bet that’s the minister’s car,” thought Foy with a smile.

He walked slowly toward the church, which was a collection of buildings around a central courtyard that was landscaped in a natural way. It looked as if the plants had been there before the church and had simply been allowed to remain as they always had been. Two huge oaks spread a canopy of shade over the entire courtyard, and there was a fountain in the middle with moss-covered rocks and a gentle sound.

As Foy approached the fountain he began to have a heavy feeling that was familiar to him. It was like soft but pressing fingers kneading anxiety into the muscles of his neck. He spoke softly to the fountain.

“This is the kind of place that once owned me, body and soul. If I thought the church was doing well, I felt like I was doing well. If I thought something was wrong at church, I felt worried and anxious about it all the time, even at night. If some families suddenly left, I couldn’t stop wondering if I had done something to make them leave. If I was mindful of my own sins and shortcomings, I felt like a hypocrite being a pastor. If I thought I preached a good sermon, I was proud, but later I would be depressed. If I felt the sermon wasn’t good, I had paranoid thoughts and my self-worth plummeted. If something happened to someone in the church, and I was too tired to feel something emotionally, I thought I was unfit to be the shepherd of the flock. If my theology was too liberal, I was seen as a dangerous influence. If my theology was too predictable, I had nothing challenging to say and my peers wouldn’t respect me. If my children were unhappy, I was a poor Christian father and a bad role model for the fathers of the church. If church attendance dropped or rose and I couldn’t explain it or deal with it, I was a poor leader. You see what I mean?”

The fountain gurgled away. Foy moved closer, sat on the edge of the fountain and began to look closely at it. It was made of a number of flattened, slate-like stones stacked in a haphazard manner that was pleasing to the eye. The water poured out of a small, cave-like opening near the top with plants dangling in front of it. It flowed across a flat stone, following gravity and the peculiarities of the stone until it collected in a little pool bordered by ferns. There was a low spot along the edge of the pool. The water overflowed at that point and ran down a mossy bank to a lower pool.

Foy watched a tiny curved leaf spinning in the upper pool. In an instant his entire focus narrowed to this leaf. The realities of the world around him faded away. He was not aware of the transition, but he was as lost as a child at play or a monk at prayer.

The leaf spun lazily and approached the waterfall at the edge of the pool several times, but each time a swirling eddy would shoo it away. Foy noticed a number of mossy, water-logged leaves at the bottom of the pool, and he wondered if some leaves made it over the edge while others died trying. Just then the leaf drifted right to the edge of the pool. It hung there for a moment, then it slowly began to tilt. In an instant it disappeared over the edge and tumbled down the mossy bank until it hung in the moss a few inches above the lower pool.

Foy stared at the leaf sadly. He felt a strange attachment to the little leaf and had wanted to watch it make the whole journey to the bottom pool. It occurred to him that the natural beauty of the fountain had developed because no one was controlling what happened to it. The water flowed in whatever way that gravity and the stones dictated. Leaves fell from the trees, some landing on the ground and others in the fountain. Some leaves followed the current from one pool to the next, and others became heavy with water and sank. All of this happened over time and created the unplanned, random beauty of the whole. Foy’s little leaf would stay there, stuck to the mossy bank, until it rotted, or until a breeze loosened it or something else happened.

Foy impulsively reached over and gave the leaf a little nudge with his finger. It tumbled the rest of the way into the lower pool where it floated about happily.

“And then there’s Divine Intervention.” He said out loud with a smile.

Suddenly the world came rushing back, and he became self-conscious. Foy stood up and looked around to see if anyone was watching him playing in the fountain and talking to himself. No one was paying attention to him, but more people had arrived for worship. They were streaming along several sidewalks that led to the open door of a stone building that was clearly the sanctuary. Some people were alone; others were chatting in groups of two or three. Some walked purposefully toward the door while others moved slowly and even stopped along the edges of the sidewalk to chat.

Foy stood looking at the open door. There were glimpses of movement visible through it. Rustling noises and subdued bits of conversation floated out into the courtyard. He caught sight of an arm in a robe rising to embrace a shoulder, then lowering to shake a hand. After a few moments, the robed arm took hold of the door and began to close it.

Foy took a step in the direction of the door, and then it seemed easier to keep walking toward it than to stop or turn around.

rlp

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Part Two

Foy reached the door a few seconds after it had closed. He opened it as softly as he could, but it made a small creaking noise. The minister, who was wearing a robe and was about to go down the aisle, turned around. His face lit up like someone who suddenly saw a long-lost friend. He held up his hand and beckoned Foy in with a smile.

Foy nodded and raised the fingers of his right hand in acknowledgment, then turned his attention to a wooden table in the foyer that had literature on it. He picked up an order of worship.

The minister disappeared down the aisle following someone carrying a candle. Foy was pleased to see that the church was designed in a traditional way. The pews were of dark wood, and there was a single aisle down the center. There was no carpet on the wooden floor, so it creaked and groaned as the procession passed by. Some of the congregants had turned in their seats and were watching the minister come down the aisle. Others were staring straight ahead or scanning the order of worship.

Foy felt a strong aversion to having anyone sitting behind him. Luckily, the last two or three rows on each side were relatively empty, and he was able to slide quietly onto the back row. He scanned the order of worship, then picked up a worn copy of the Book of Common Prayer from the pew. At that point everyone in the congregation suddenly stood up. Foy jumped up quickly to join them. The people spoke in unison in a rough, mumbling monotone. He wasn’t sure if the words they were saying were written down in the order of worship or in the prayer book. He looked at one and then the other, then everyone sat down again. Foy dropped into his seat a half-beat behind everyone else.

He watched the people around him to know when to kneel or stand and flipped through the Book of Common Prayer, paying close attention to a section of pages that were clearly more worn than the rest. Eventually he found the right place and began to follow the worship service. At one point an organist played a long piece. Foy put down the prayer book and relaxed. He let down his guard and became very emotional. His eyes filled with tears.

The minister stood to preach. The gospel text for the day was very familiar to Foy. It was the story of a prostitute who had come to Jesus and anointed his feet with a perfumed oil. A Pharisee who observed this was deeply offended that Jesus allowed himself to be touched by such a woman.

The minister read the text carefully, closed the Bible, and said, “Before we can understand the story, we need to be clear about a couple of things. First, the woman in the story was not a good person. Any modern, Hollywood idea of a kindly prostitute would have been foreign to the people of this time. She was violating the sexual and social values of her people, and she was offensive to them. A modern equivalent might be a woman who flirts and seeks to be intimate with the husbands of women who thought they were her friends.”

“Second, the Pharisee was a good person. Those of us who are familiar with the stories of Jesus can begin to think that Pharisees were mean-spirited, judgmental men. But the Pharisees were greatly admired by the people of that day, as well they should have been. The Pharisee in the story was a devout and pious man. He was a good citizen, a patriot, and he would have given 10% of everything he had to charitable causes. If you and I lived in that day, we would have liked and admired him.”

“If you think of the prostitute as a misunderstood, kind-hearted woman and the Pharisee as a mean-spirited, oppressive and judgmental zealot, you will ruin the story. You will take away its edge. Jesus’ acceptance of the woman and rebuke of the Pharisee was shocking in that day. They would have expected a righteous rabbi to have chased away the sinner and embraced the pious man. The story is nothing short of radical. It is a stunning example of the upside-down, topsy-turvy, unexpected nature of God’s love. Truly, even the least of us is precious in eyes of God.”

It was a brilliant opening. In one swift, simple move, the minister set the story free from the restraints of modern culture. Foy was impressed and wept softly throughout the entire sermon. A woman in the row in front of him reached back, without looking, and handed him three or four tissues. He accepted them gratefully.

Foy chose not to go forward for communion. He watched with a tender but distant affection as the people filed by to receive the bread and wine. In his mind he saw the faces of many friends from the days when he was the one handing out bits of bread and saying, “This is the body of Christ.”

When the service was over, Foy remained in his seat with his head bowed to avoid the rush of people trying to leave. When the crowd thinned, he slipped out quietly and returned to the fountain in the courtyard. His leaf was still floating in the lower pool. He watched it and marveled at the power the Church still held for him. The tasks and errands he had planned for that day now seemed painfully mundane and ridiculous. Perhaps he would go to the hardware store and pick up that sandpaper he needed. Maybe he would go to the supermarket and buy some cereal and milk for supper. Later he might rent a movie and eat peanut M&Ms while he watched it. It was hard to rise from the fountain and go back to his life, so he lingered there, watching the leaf drift softly in the water.

After some time he heard footsteps. He turned and saw the minister approaching. He spoke, but Foy couldn’t understand him because of the sound of the fountain.

“Heymuh naymzul airy.”

Foy cupped a hand to his ear to indicate that he hadn’t understood.

“It Slarry.”

Foy was disoriented by his inability to make sense of the man’s speech.

“Slarry?” he said, tilting his head.

The minister laughed loudly. “Oh, sorry. I said my name’s Larry. It’s Larry.”

They both laughed.

The minister slowed his laughter and transitioned smoothly into a greeting. “I noticed you coming into the service, and I’ve never seen you here before. I’m glad I caught you before you left because I wanted to meet you.”

Foy recognized the graceful, social charm of a minister at church. It was a charm he knew he could slip into with almost no effort.

“My name’s Foy. Nice to meet you, Larry.”

“So Foy, what brought you to Saint Mark’s this morning? I mean, obviously you wanted to go to church, but what brought you to this church?”

Foy looked around as if there might be a sign with the church’s name on it. He realized he hadn’t bothered to find out the name of the church.

“Oh, this is Saint Mark’s? Funny, I didn’t, uh, notice the name or anything. I saw this place a few days ago, and it was so beautiful. I just kind of wandered in, following the beauty I guess.”

Larry looked around the courtyard with appreciation. “Yeah, it’s quite a lovely place. Very peaceful. You’re welcome to come here anytime. I’m glad you found us this morning.”

Foy looked closely at him. He seemed like a sincere man. He was glad that Foy had come. The fact that a stranger came to his church was something that obviously pleased him.

“Great sermon, Reverend,” said Foy.

Larry smiled and thanked him. It was the polite thank you of a man who hears those words all the time, knows they don’t really mean anything, and has learned to be okay with that.

“It was the opening that got me, that part about her not being a good person and the Pharisee being, you know, a good man. It was so clean and simple and perfect. It was like going back in time and hearing the story with their ears. It was amazing. I can tell you thought a lot about how you were going to do that.”

Larry looked stunned and stared at him without speaking. Foy was amused by his expression. He probably didn’t expect that sort of comment from some guy off the street. The people in the pews rarely notice things like that. A good sermon would communicate well, but a layperson might not understand the work that went into such an opening.

“Wow, thanks. Um, you really got that, didn’t you?”

Larry looked at Foy, trying to figure him out.

“It’s just…most people don’t pick up on that kind of stuff.”

“Some do,” said Foy.

They sat quietly for a moment, then Foy spoke. “I want to ask you something rather personal. Of course, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I guess that goes without saying.”

Larry nodded his assent.

“How are you doing?”

Larry nodded seriously.

“I’m doing fine. The church is healthy – I think. Attendance is up, and we’ve got some young families again, so that’s good. I’ve got a good staff to work with. Charlie, our new youth minister, is doing a great job, so that whole area is picking up. We have some issues with the facility, but…”

Foy broke in. “No, not the church. I meant how are YOU doing.”

“Oh,” said Larry.

“The reason I ask is I have a friend who was a minister, and he had a hard time – how do I say this – keeping track of himself. He got lost in the role, if that makes any sense. It’s like you coming out here to talk to me. I look at your smile, and it’s perfectly sincere. I can see that. But you have to come out here and talk to me. It’s your job. My friend, he got to where he couldn’t tell if he had any real compassion left in him, or if it was all the job. He started feeling false, or wrong, or somehow not himself. It just got to where he didn’t like the feeling of it – being a minister.”

Larry looked directly at Foy, who looked right back at him. His eyes dropped. He turned his head a little to the right and looked away. Then he turned back and looked at Foy’s knees for a few seconds. He slowly raised his eyes until he was looking right at Foy again.

“Honestly? Just you and me talking? Not the kind of thing I would necessarily want to say at church?”

He looked at Foy, waiting for some kind of acknowledgment of informal confidentiality. Foy nodded and said, “Yeah.”

“Okay, I don’t know how I'm doing, exactly. That's hard to know. I know what your friend was feeling. Sometimes I don’t feel like a real person here at church - most of the time, to be honest. And yeah, I have to be nice to everyone. I have to. And I guess somebody’s got to be here, welcoming people, you know? Just, being the face of the church, I guess.”

“You know what’s hard? People at church don’t see me as a real person. Oh, I guess they sort of do, and one or two know me pretty well. But I think for the most part, I’m some sort of spiritual icon or something. For some I’m a mediator between them and a God they fear. Some need to believe that I’m living an authentic Christian life, especially those who aren’t doing that themselves. Those are the ones you’ve got to watch out for, because if they ever see, you know, your humanity or anything… And then, for some I think I’m roughly the equivalent of the pulpit and the stained glass. You know, every church has a minister in a robe down front – just a part of the furnishings - no big deal.”

Foy stroked his chin, looking at the ground and nodding solemnly. “Yeah, that’s the kind of thing my friend used to say.”

Foy picked up an acorn and pulled the little cap off the top of it. He threw the acorn away, put the cap on the end of his finger like a hat, and wiggled it. Then he flicked the acorn cap away.

“For what it’s worth, having watched my friend pretty closely, here’s how I see it. They think they need a minister, but what they really need is you. I know you’re a priest and you have to bless the sacraments and all that, and someone’s got to, so that’s fine. But they need to see you as a man - as a person. They might not want a straight dose of Larry, but that’s what they need.”

“And you think you should be a good minister, and I’m sure you are and try to be. But what you need to be – and I know I’m getting all mystical here – but what you need to be is Larry. You need to be Larry. It’s your right as a human, and I guess maybe your primary calling. I don’t know, don’t you think we’re all called – first of all – to be or maybe become the kind of unique creation that God imagined on the day we were born?”

Suddenly Foy became self-conscious about talking too much.

“Ah, what do I know? I guess while we’re all figuring this stuff out it’s good that you’re here, being what we need you to be. You know, showing up and handing out the wafers on Sunday, whether you feel like it or not. I admire you for that.”

Foy reached into the fountain and nudged the little leaf which was sitting perfectly still in the water of the lower pool. It scooted away from his finger, drifted sideways a bit, then slowed and stopped moving.

Foy stood up and stretched his back.

“I guess I better be taking off.”

Larry stood too. He held out his hand and Foy shook it.

“It was nice meeting you, Foy. Very nice, on a Sunday, after the service, uh, to meet you. Hope I’ll see you again sometime.”

“You probably will.”

As Foy walked away, Larry said, “Hey, what was your friend’s name anyway? That minister you were telling me about?”

Foy stopped but he didn’t turn around. He looked down, smiled, then rubbed his chin with his thumb.

“Foy. Same name as me, interestingly enough.”

Larry smiled. “Yeah, I thought so. All that shit you threw out about the sermon was a dead giveaway.”

Foy turned around and began to walk away backwards. He pointed at Larry with both index fingers. “C’mon, I meant every word of it. That was an awesome sermon, Reverend. Truly inspirational.”

Larry held his hand up and slapped it toward Foy, laughing.

Foy turned around and moved out of the courtyard into the parking lot. He turned his head to the right and shouted over his shoulder.

“Helluva good sermon.”

 

rlp

Note: The sermon intro from this story is based on a sermon by Reverend Sam Todd at the Episcopal Church of Reconciliation in San Antonio. The sermon was delivered sometime in the 90s. I still remember that sermon, which is as good a compliment as a sermon can receive, I suppose.

Read the Gospel story from Luke chapter 7

 

Part One

This story was originally written in two parts. I've kept the part one page here to preserve the comments. Click here to read the entire story.

 

This story originally appeared in two parts, but both may be read here. This page is maintained to preserve the comments.

rlp

 

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 an 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 4^th 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 tube 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.

Part Two

This story was originally in two parts. You can read the whole story here. I left this entry in place to preserve the comments.

Note: This story is the third in a threesome of Foy Davis stories. The first is "Extreme Unction," and the second is "De Nada."

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪

The bus made a squealing noise as it pulled into the New Orleans station. Foy’s face was very close to the glass.

Every place has its own look.

San Antonio looked dusty, with muted colors. Like it was the first hint of the West. New Orleans looked dark and rich to him, with deep colors and humid air. It was green and wet, and there were black people everywhere.

This is the beginning of the deep South. Everything east of here is like this.

Getting off the bus was a moment Foy had fantasized about for many years. Absolute freedom. No ties, no responsibilities, no one waiting for him, no one watching him to see how a minister would behave, no one to take care of, no schedule or agenda. He stood on the sidewalk outside the bus station. People were moving past him hurriedly. They had places to go and things to do. Foy’s destiny and direction were his own to choose. It was like a movie.

So how does it feel?

He stopped and his mouth opened a little. He lowered his chin and let it drift to the right and tried to pay attention to what was going on inside him. What he felt was a tinge of anxiety. Also a nagging and familiar need to know what he was going to do. He felt a strong, inner longing for a schedule and a purpose. This feeling disgusted him, but he tried to be gentle with himself.

It takes awhile to get used to this. It’s like going on vacation, but even harder. Just settle down; you'll be fine.

A college friend with some connections had gotten him a room above some retail space in the French Quarter. He had the address in his pocket but was self-conscious about hailing a cab since he had never done that before. Plus he wanted to see and feel everything. That was part of the deal. Someone pointed down a street and said he could get to the French Quarter on foot. He slung his duffel bag over one shoulder and his backpack over the other and started walking.

A few streets down, a man was sitting on piece of carpet, twisting and bending his body into extreme positions. There was a hat on the ground with some change in it. Most people were walking by without even glancing at him. Foy was fascinated and watched him for a few minutes.

So you get up in the morning and walk out of your house carrying your carpet for a day of yoga or whatever and people give you money.

There wasn’t much money in the hat. Foy dropped in some change and nodded at the man to show him that his odd skills were appreciated. The man saw his nod but gave no response, which amused Foy.

Nearby some young boys were breakdancing on flattened, cardboard boxes. They also had a hat on the ground. A large pile of discarded batteries behind their boom box indicated they had been at it for some time.  It didn’t seem that the money in the hat would be able to keep up with the expense of the batteries, which bothered Foy. He looked around for an electric outlet and spotted one on the external wall of a nearby shop. He had a brief fantasy of bringing them an extension cord and being something of a hero, but he played out the fantasy and it ended with the shopkeeper jerking the cord out of the wall and using it to drive the boys away from the front of his store. He decided they probably knew what they were doing and moved away.

In the French Quarter he was charmed to find that the streets were lined with two-story buildings that had wrought-iron balcony railings, just like in the photographs. He found his room and spent the afternoon doing things that people like to do in New Orleans. He had mile-high pie at The Pontchartrain and listened to jazz in a little club while drinking coffee with chicory in it. He went into a cigar store and asked for a really good cigar. He didn’t know how to answer the shopkeeper’s questions, so he just bought one that the man said was good. It was eleven dollars.

He found a café that looked right and sat outside smoking his cigar, drinking beer, and watching people walk down the street. It seemed strange to him, for some reason, that everyone had somewhere to go. The crowd flowed by the café like a river. People were in groups, laughing, drinking, and purposeful. For the first time he felt relaxed and at ease. He was not a part of the scene. He was only watching.

So this is what you do. You go into the streets with your friends and walk up and down. You drink and talk and maybe you’ll see something interesting. You do this a lot and eventually you’re there when something interesting happens and you can tell the story at work or whatever. You have to be in this. This has to be your life. Natural. Just what you do.

The cigar started making him feel sick, so he stubbed it out and left it on the table with some money. He got his beer and moved out into the street to walk with everyone else. He paused at a strip club and peeked inside. The music was tacky and the woman on the stage looked tired. He grimaced and pulled his head out of the door quickly.

There was a throng of people moving down the street and he allowed himself to get caught up in it. A woman was throwing beads from a balcony and he caught some. The young men around him started yelling, “Show us your tits!” They said it over and over, and the woman looked like she was considering the proposition. He felt giddy for a moment and looked around.

I can do this if I want.

He joined the crowd and shouted, “Show us your tits!” but he was immediately uncomfortable and self-conscious. He only said it once. The woman quickly lifted her shirt, and Foy yelled along with everyone else and lifted his beer. He hated the feel of it even before he lowered his arm. It was like being impotent. This is the stuff that should work but it didn't. Nothing felt right. He was on the outside, looking in.

Shit, I don’t even remember how to have fun. Maybe religion sucked the life right out of me, just the ability to hang out with some friends, get a little drunk, and enjoy whatever it is that they are enjoying. God, am I that lost?

Foy stopped in the middle of the street and became like an island with people flowing around him. He began to push through the crowd, heading for the curb. As he moved he began to feel frantic. He had to get out of the street and over to the sidewalk where he could get his back against a building and watch things again. He wanted to feel the way he felt in the café earlier.

When he got to the edge of the street, something against the curb got his attention. It was a battered Bible with no cover lying in a pile of leaves. It was open but in disarray, as if someone had dropped it. The left side was rolled under and had a wet shoestring draped across it. A cigarette butt was wedged into the valley between the pages. A muddy imprint from a tennis shoe obscured the page on the right.

It was such an ugly thing, like a corpse, and he could not control his reaction. He groaned and bent over it like it was a wounded puppy. He lifted a few of the pages and flopped them back and forth.

It was a generic King James, the kind that are printed by the millions and spread all over the world like cheap toys and good-luck charms. The kind you find in motels, homeless shelters, and used book stores. The kind of Bible that people who never read the Bible own. If someone asks them if they have a Bible, they will think for a moment and say, “Yeah, I might have one somewhere.”

Foy stood up and looked down at the Bible, wiping his hands on his jeans. He felt a little resentful of its sudden appearance that evening.

This doesn’t mean shit. Those cheap Bibles are everywhere.

He stood on the curb and looked back into the street. It was getting late and the crowd had grown. There were so many people now that the street was almost full. The movement of the crowd was more sluggish. It stopped and started and surged here and there. Suddenly there was a commotion across the street and about half a block down. There were angry voices and a burst of wild laughter. The movement in the street slowed and then stopped as people tried to see what was happening. By some miracle, the crowd parted unevenly and he could see all the way to the curb on the other side.

Perfectly framed in the division of the crowd was a small, preteen girl sitting on the curb. She was wearing jeans and a worn, faded t-shirt. Her tennis shoes were filthy and had no laces. In her hands was a flat box hanging from a rope tied around her neck, like the cigarette-girl boxes from the old movies. Foy had never seen one of these boxes in real life and he froze, staring at it. In the box were a few bags of potato chips and several varieties of candy. Her right heel was up off the ground and she was fidgeting, bumping it repeatedly against her left ankle. Her shoulders were curved and slumped and she had a vacant expression that looked as though it had settled into her face for good.

Foy felt a surge of emotion as he realized that this poor child was selling things in the middle of the French Quarter, all alone, late at night. He stepped off the curb into the street just as the crowd began to move again. The people flooded together, blocking his view of the girl. He fought his way through the crowd but was dragged along, so that when he got across the street he was about ten yards down from her. He turned his shoulders to the side and walked hurriedly through the crowd, digging a hand into his jeans pocket.

I’ll buy everything she has in that box and just give her whatever cash I’ve got left. Maybe I should find out where she lives and take her home. She shouldn’t be out here this late, working, selling stuff, whatever. That’s gotta be against the law or something.

When he got to the place where he had seen the girl, she was gone. He looked around quickly, then sprang up on the base of a lamppost, like that guy in Singing in the Rain. He could see nothing but a river of bobbing heads. Across the street another young woman on a balcony pulled up her shirt. The crowd hooted and surged in that direction. Foy looked up at her. Her breasts were bouncing freely and she had a huge smile on her face. She looked so happy, like she was having the time of her life. Below her there was a chorus of cheers and dozens of hands raised beer bottles in a raucous toast.

Foy held onto the post with his right hand and swung around it, looking everywhere for the girl, but she was gone. Then for some reason he didn’t like the idea of getting down, so he stayed on the lamppost, looking around in amazement.

I know nothing of this world. Nothing.

And then everything began to close in on him. The movement of the people below was repulsive, and he didn’t want anyone to touch him. The sounds from the balcony were screeching and sharp, clawing at his mind. There was too much of everything, and he began to panic. He wanted to feel his back pressed against something large and solid. He wanted a safe place – his home or a room, just a small place with maybe one friend there to laugh with him. He wanted something familiar.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t like it here. I’m leaving and going to a place where I want to be.

He climbed down and started walking, and then the truth hit him. He had nowhere to go. He had no home and no family and no job. There was no one in the world for him. Not one person to know him and to know what he was feeling right now. He would not sit down with a friend tomorrow and say, “You can’t believe what it was like out there on the street last night. There was this Bible and a little girl I saw.” No one would hear this story.

Foy pressed his back against the front of a store. He was breathing hard, as if he had been running. A thought came to him that was cruel and mocking.

This is what it means to be lonely. And you are going to know what loneliness means.

rlp

 

 

 

Note: This story is the third in a threesome of Foy Davis stories. The first is "Extreme Unction," and the second is "De Nada."

I found out yesterday that my college roommate died last week. His name was Kenny Cameron. I wish I could have gone to the funeral, but it was over before I knew about it.

My father was the associate pastor of Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston in the 1970s. I spent a lot of time at church, as you can imagine. Two of my closest friends also went to Tallowood - Kenny Cameron and Mark Carter. Mark sent me an email yesterday and told me about Kenny’s death. I hadn’t heard from Mark in years either, maybe not since I officiated at his wedding close to 20 years ago.

Kenny and Mark. Kenny Cameron and Mark Carter. If I say those names, I can almost feel the 70s. I can feel the heat of Houston; I can hear the Doobie Brothers; I can feel my stomach fluttering when I tried talking to a girl. I can remember the church stuff - the youth camps, the revivals, and youth choir on Sunday nights. The memories are right inside me and also far behind me. Near and far.

So that you can have a feel for what Kenny meant to me, I’m going to break a sacred trust I have with myself. I’m going to tell you the truth about one of the Foy Davis stories. There are six Foy stories so far. Most of them are fictional. But one of the stories is true. “Freckles and Blue” is my best and most faithful recounting of some things that actually happened to me in middle school. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the heartbreak of losing “Emma,” but over the years that memory has become tender. It brings a smile to my face when I remember what a little boy I was and how deeply I felt the things that wounded me.

Kenny and Mark were on the bus from that story. I left for camp a stranger, and I came home a week later, having had my first romance and with Kenny and Mark as my best friends.

That was quite a summer.

Kenny Cameron is dead. I have to keep saying it because I can’t feel it. Kenny was funny. He laughed a lot and had a killer smile with perfect white teeth. He was handsome and smooth with girls. I tried my best to imitate him in this regard, but I was not smooth. Honestly, girls scared me to death until I was halfway through high school. After that they only made me nervous, but after being scared to death, nervous feels pretty damn good. But Kenny was never scared around girls or anything else, or so it seemed to me at the time. That's how I remember him.

Kenny wanted to be a doctor, and we went off to Baylor University together, along with “Emma” from the story and a few others from our church. Kenny and I lived in a tiny dorm room for one year. We hung everything on our walls upside down, for some reason. We thought it was funny. Believe it or not, they used to have an organized panty raid for freshmen at Baylor. The boys would wear their freshmen beanies and sing outside the girls’ dorms. The girls would toss panties out of their windows – specially purchased for this event, one hopes – with their phone numbers written on them. I have seen a thousand boys crowded around a tall dormitory and the air filled with panties. I have seen this. I bear witness to it.

Being very athletic at the time and rather determined, I snagged 13 pair, which was pretty impressive. We hung them all on our wall, upside down, and left them there for the entire year. But I never called a single phone number. You know, that whole nervous around girls thing.

Yeah, Supertramp playing on Kenny’s 8-track tape player, drinking Cokes and sitting in our dorm room, surrounded by upside down posters and panties. Those were the days, right?

But then Kenny joined a fraternity, and I got very serious about philosophy and my religious studies, so I made the cocky decision that fraternities were ridiculous - and I passed up no opportunity to say so. We drifted apart and by the end of college, we were saying hello if we happened to pass each other on the campus.

Life moved on, as it does. I heard that Kenny never made it to medical school and that he had a daughter. Then at some point I heard that he had multiple sclerosis. I never called him. I didn’t know his number, and his friendship was long gone by then. And I missed his funeral. That’s the last chapter I have for Kenny, and now that I write it in that way, I suddenly feel very sad.

Mark Carter lives in Austin now, with his wife and two daughters. We've agreed that it has been too long. We’re going to meet soon for Mexican food, cold beer, and about four hours of long overdue conversation. I’m sorry that it took the death of an old friend to remind us of how precious these early friendships are, but that’s the way it often happens.

Precious things pass quickly. Life and living wrap themselves around you and hold you fast to the present. Years fly by, and you find new friends and new ways of being. But the truth is, new friends are an infinite possibility, but old friends are fixed in stone. There are only a few of them, and no more will be added to their ranks. Some will be taken away.

So I’m coming to Austin, Mark. I want to see what 25 years has done to you and for you. I want to hear about your life. I want to talk about Kenny and the old days. I’m coming to Austin because there were only two of you, Kenny and Mark. And now there is only one.

rlp

A hero of mine died last week. I wept openly when I read about it, though I only met him in person a couple of times. His name was Foy Valentine. And yes, that is where I got the name of my fictional character, Foy Davis, though my character bears no resemblance to Foy Valentine in personality. No, it's only a name that they share. I intended it to be a private tribute to someone whose life has meant much to me. I had planned to write a story about how Foy got his name. I'm sure I'll eventually get around to that, but since the real Foy has died, it seems right to tell you about him now.

Foy Valentine was a Christian first, and a Baptist kind of Christian only second. A lot of people have a hard time keeping that sort of thing in its proper order. Foy did not. He was a Christian ethicist who worked for the Southern Baptist Convention years ago. Foy's job was to speak the truth to those in power. And that he did. He received a lot of hate mail over the years from Baptists whose world was not large enough to hold truth. And he was labeled many things: A liberal, a radical, a nigger lover, a troublemaker.

As a young seminarian, I "met" Foy Valentine while researching Southern Baptist responses to the bombing of a Baptist church in Birmingham in 1963. Four Baptist children were killed in that blast. Four children whose skin was a dark color. I was shocked and dismayed to find that Southern Baptist newspapers throughout the South had nothing whatever to say about it. Not a mention.

But in my research I found the voice of one crying in the wilderness of the sins of my own people. It was a notation in the official record of the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting of 1968. The record indicates that a man named Foy Valentine stood up on the convention floor and pleaded for his brothers and sisters in Christ to confess the sin of our racism and embrace people of all colors. He was the same age then that I am now. He was in his 40s and employed by those very Baptists to whom he spoke on that day. He had a wife and children and a lot to lose.

Apparently, truth meant more to Foy than comfort and security.

His remarks were not well received, to say the least. It would be another twenty years before the Southern Baptist Convention would confess that particular sin.

When I first read about Foy Valentine's courageous stance, I made a personal commitment that was so brash and bold that I am a little embarrassed to write about it here. I vowed that if I ever found myself in a similar situation, where being faithful to Christ would cost me dearly, I would follow in Foy's footsteps.

I fear that I will not be able to live up to Foy's strong example, and that fear haunts me always. What will it profit me if I gain the whole world, but lose my soul? But I hope that I am strong enough, because I would like my grandchildren to think about me in the same way that I think about him.

Thank you for the witness of your life and words, Foy. History has shown that you were on the right side of your generation's most important issue. May God grant us the courage to stand on the side of righteousness in our time as well.

rlp

Tribute to Foy Valentine by the editor of Christian Ethics Today, the journal that Foy Founded.

A very nice obituary and summary of Foy's life.

This Story Originally Appeared in Two Parts

 

"Hey mom, when are you going to the store? I need a big candy cane."

"What’s a big candy cane?"

"It’s just a candy cane. Only it’s…big. It’s like this big."

He held his hands in front of him, palms inward and about 12 inches apart.

"Also it’s kind of big around too. Fatter."

"What do you need a candy cane for?"

"Just…people have them at school. It’s a present for someone."

His mother looked interested. "Oh, for whom?"

He looked away and mumbled. "Just friends. You don’t know them.”

"Well, I’m going to the drugstore later. You can go with me, and we’ll see if they have them there."

"Cool."

She smiled and kept her eyes on the pot she was wiping dry. "It’s very cute when you say cool, you know."

He exhaled loudly and rolled his eyes as he slouched off toward his room.

---

The drugstore did have the big candy canes. They were on the aisle that normally held school supplies but was being used for Christmas decorations at this time of year.

Foy leaned forward and peered into a box on a shelf. It was about as high as his chin. There they were, the big candy canes he’d been seeing all week at school. Lots of the other 7^th graders were giving them to their girlfriends or boyfriends. It seemed like everyone who was cool had a big candy cane this year. He was tempted to buy one for himself so that he could carry it around, but he was afraid someone might ask who gave it to him.

He selected one from the box and looked it over carefully to make sure the cellophane wasn’t torn or the cane broken. Satisfied, he took it to the counter. The cashier, a high school girl, popped her bubble gum and said, “Thirty seven cents.”

He shoved his hand into the front pocket of his cool jeans, the ones made of real denim. He had talked his mother into washing them eight or nine times before he wore them so they would be properly faded. He pulled out a handful of coins along with some lint, a marble, and a Bazooka Joe bubble gum wrapper. With his head bent carefully over his full hand, he selected one quarter, two nickels, and two pennies. The cashier hit a couple of buttons on the register, then put his candy cane into a paper sack. After that he sat by the door, waiting for his mother and thinking about Emma.

---

It had been more than a year since he was plucked from his idyllic elementary school life with its marbles, playgrounds, and baseball and dropped into the strange and unforgiving world of junior high. His parents moved to Houston the summer before he began sixth grade because his father took a job as the pastor of one of the larger Baptist churches in town.

A week after they arrived, his parents sent him off to the church’s summer camp. They said it would be a good way for him to make friends. That Monday morning he boarded one of the middle school buses. A lot of the kids on the bus were listening to music on small radios, and some of the boys were even sitting next to girls. This immediately interested him but was too frightening to seriously consider.

Foy sat in the safest seat he could find, which was the front seat next to an adult, a place where no other kid wanted to sit. The drive was eternally long, or at least it seemed to be. He had nothing to do and no one to talk to.

Several hours into the trip, a note was passed up from the back of the bus. It was obviously from a girl. It was written in purple ink, and there was a flower sprouting from the tail of the y. It said, “Are you the new pastor’s son?” There was a yes and a no at the bottom along with instructions to circle one. Shaken and uncertain of where this was going, he circled yes and passed the note to the person behind him. He faced forward and sat as still as he could.

Another note arrived a few minutes later with a new message. “Why don’t you come to the back?”

Foy began to panic. Desperate for an excuse to stay where he was, he wrote, “We’re almost there so I might as well stay” and again passed it to the person in the seat behind him.

Soon he was tapped again, and a third note was put into his hands. This one said, “It’s like 2 hours until we get there!”

Foy wrote, “I know” on the note and passed it back. To his great relief, no more notes came, but when they got off the bus, a girl walked up to him and said, “Emma likes you. She’s the one in the purple shirt.” She pointed toward a girl, about his height, who had freckles and light brown hair that bounced when she walked.

Somehow he ended up next to Emma in the lunch line, and she said, “Hi.” He managed to squeeze out a meek, “Hello.” His eyes traveled over her slightly sunburned nose, past some enchanting freckles to her blue eyes. She was chewing bubble gum very fast. Suddenly she laughed, and it seemed like her whole face was laughing. He immediately fell hopelessly and completely in love with her.

The rest of the week was a blur of unthinkable happiness and emotions that soared to dizzying heights he had never before imagined. They sat together each night in the tabernacle. The preacher’s voice dimmed to a faint buzz as they passed notes back and forth. When she bent over to write, he would watch her hair flutter in the wind from the giant fans. His heart pounded in his chest, and there was a constant tingle of anticipation in his stomach.

On Wednesday, having been coached by a couple of girls about the next move that should be made, they walked together in a remote part of the camp. He swallowed hard and said, “Uh, do you wanna go with me?” She said, “Yes,” and the pact was made. They were boyfriend and girlfriend according to the rules of their small world. They held hands, and he felt the tickle of her fingers on his palm. His breathing came faster, and that was the moment that everything changed. Childhood was over and something new had begun.

He rode in the back of the bus on the way home at the end of the week. Emboldened by his romantic success, he joked with Emma and played rowdy games with some of the boys that he had befriended. He was rather drunk on his new life and did things that were beyond comprehension a mere five days earlier. At one point he even told a bawdy joke that he had heard in the locker room. The boys laughed and a couple of girls said, “Gross!”

Finally they arrived in the church parking lot. Kids poured out of all the buses. Foy was looking for his duffel bag in the compartment underneath the bus when Emma tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, smiling.

“I don’t want to go with you anymore,” She said meekly, almost as if she was embarrassed. Then she turned and walked away. She got into a brownish car that immediately pulled out of the parking lot.

The pain of it hit his stomach hard. Immediate, sharp, very physical. He froze from the shock of it, unable to move. Then she was gone, and he had said nothing to her. He looked around the parking lot. Everyone else was busy, and no one had noticed. Suddenly he felt completely alone again, as if the week at camp had never happened. He stood there for a few moments with his sleeping bag under his arm and his dirty clothes hanging out of a pillowcase. By some superhuman force of will he managed to say goodbye to the other boys, but when he got into his parents' car he put his face down to his knees and bit his bottom lip hard to keep from crying. Luckily his little sister was fussing, so his mother didn’t notice him.

When he had regained control of himself, he sat up and gently leaned his temple against the glass of the door and stared at the part of the ground that is close to the car and goes by fast.

When they got home he mumbled something about feeling tired and a little sick. As he hurried to his room he heard his mom say, “Why don’t you lie down awhile?” When he closed the door of his room he felt safe to let go of his shame and the fear of being discovered. Grief fell over him. He did not understand what had happened. Perhaps he had done something wrong or broken some unknown rule of boyfriends and girlfriends. He wondered if Emma had told the other kids and everyone knew how dumb he was. He didn’t know anything about this stuff.

He lay on his bed with his face buried in his pillow. Deep sobs came up from his belly and out of his mouth. There was no stopping them.

Suddenly he became concerned that his father might walk in and find him crying. He slipped over the side of the bed into the space between it and the wall, dragging his pillow down with him. He saw a familiar patch of golden fur and reached for it. It was his old teddy bear, the one he had finally stopped sleeping with a few months before. He told his dad that he had had thrown it away, but he had only put it under the bed. He pressed his face into the bear’s stomach and let go.

---

Foy’s memories of that painful summer were interrupted by his Mom who called him back to the present. She was finished with her shopping and ready to go. She had apparently forgotten about the candy cane, or at least she said nothing about it, a thing for which Foy was thankful.

On the ride home, Foy considered the big question. How and when would he give the candy cane to Emma? She didn’t go to his school. He was much too young to drive, and he didn’t know where she lived in any case. He did not want his parents to know anything about this, so asking for their help was out of the question. There was really only one option. He would have to give it to her at church sometime before Christmas.

The candlelight service at midnight on Christmas Eve was very popular at their church. Everyone came, and the kids liked it because they got to stay out so late. Foy decided that he would give her the candy cane on that night. He would find her before the service, and they would sit together in the balcony. At the right moment he would give her the candy cane, perhaps with a ribbon around it, and she would understand that he still cared for her. And then he hoped he would be brave enough to hold her hand again, like he had so long ago.

---

He had avoided Emma for about six months after the summer camp breakup. Whenever he saw her at church his stomach would churn, and he would turn around and walk the other way. Emma’s family did not attend as regularly as his, so he was only subjected to this agony a couple of times a month.

At choir practice, when the girls were singing, he would sometimes watch her in safety while her eyes were locked on the director. On one of these occasions she pulled out a tube of fruity lip gloss, applied it smoothly, as if she was an old hand at that sort of thing, then pressed her upper and lower lips together briefly before letting them pop apart.

He thought he might faint.

In the Spring of their 6^th grade year, he walked around a corner at the church and almost ran into her. She smiled shyly and said hello. The encounter seemed to break the ice a little, and after that they often waved or exchanged greetings. But he had been deeply wounded and did not have the courage to sit with her or reach for her hand.

Then Emma disappeared from church altogether. Week after week passed and she was not there. She did not attend camp that summer either, something that disappointed him greatly. He had begun to think of camp as a magical place where normal life was put aside and boys and girls walked together, held hands, and made solemn vows.

7^th grade began, and it appeared Emma was gone for good. Foy almost forgot about her as he became caught up in football and a number of activities at school. But in November she appeared again one Sunday morning, and he felt a hot flush of emotion. It was clear that he still adored her. She waved to him in a friendly way, and they talked after church. There had been some kind of family trouble, and for a time they had dropped out of church. But things were better, she said, and they were back. Slightly older and a little more confident, he chatted with her for a few moments. But he had no idea how to bring up the painful subject of the camp breakup, which was more than a year old by that time.

As Christmas approached, he came up with the idea of giving her the big candy cane. He did not realize that the candy cane craze was limited to his own school and was simply a passing fad. He thought that big candy canes were a well-known thing to give to a girl that you cared for. Unable to bring himself to say, “I still like you,” he thought he could perhaps be brave enough to give her the candy cane. He was certain she would understand.

---

In the days leading up to Christmas, the big candy cane sat in an honored place on his shelves, near his catcher’s mitt and baseball cards, right under his autographed picture of Roger Staubach. He had tied a crude and misshapen bow around it with a piece of wrinkled blue ribbon that he found in the box where they kept the ornaments for their Christmas tree.

School was out, and he went skating and played touch football in the front yard with his best friend Steve. But always a part of his mind was thinking about Christmas Eve and Emma. He was haunted by thoughts of her freckles, her blue eyes, and her laugh, which seemed in his young mind to be the very source of joy in the world.

On Christmas Eve, Foy’s mother was surprised to find him dressed and ready to go at 9:00. She laughed and told him they weren’t going to leave until 10:45. He spent the time in the interim fiddling with the bow on the candy cane and listening to music on his radio. Finally the time came, and his mother loaded the children into the car. They arrived a little earlier than most families. Foy found a good observation spot toward the back of the foyer where he would be able to see all three doors that led into the church.

The service began at 11:30. By 11:15, there was a steady stream of people pouring into the church. As they passed through the doors, each person took a candle from one of several boxes. Foy picked up two candles, in case Emma needed one, then returned to his post to keep watch.

At 11:35 the doors to the church were closed, and Foy was in the foyer alone. He wondered if perhaps he had missed her. He stayed a few minutes longer, then climbed the stairs to the balcony. He went down to the front row and began scanning the lower section of the large sanctuary, looking for that familiar bounce of her hair. The service dragged on. Scripture was read and carols were sung, but there was no sign of Emma. When the candles were lit at midnight, Foy sank into the pew with his own lighted candle in one hand and the candy cane in the other. Somehow he had missed her, but he couldn’t understand how it had happened.

“Maybe she came in one of the side doors,” he thought with renewed excitement. Of course that was it. Her family was probably sitting in one of the side sections where he couldn’t see them from the balcony. As soon as the service was over, Foy ran down the stairs and out into the night. People were everywhere, hurrying to their cars, and he darted back and forth through the crowd, looking for her. He ran back through the church to the other side, but she was not there either. Soon the crowds thinned and the reality of the situation became clear. Her family had not come that night. In all of his planning, it had never occurred to him that she might not be there at all.

He continued to watch the last stragglers with a faint hope for some miracle, but sorrow was already descending upon him. The disappointment was more, he thought, than he could bear, for he had no idea if or when he would see her again. Perhaps her parents would not return at all. Perhaps she was lost to him forever.

Soon his mother called his name, somewhat irritated that he had dallied and was keeping the family from going home. His little sister was asleep and his younger brother was cranky. Not wanting her to know what had happened, he looked around quickly, then laid the candy cane gently on the top of a hedge of thick holly that grew near one side of the church. It stayed on the top for a brief moment, then slipped between the leaves into the darkness.

In the car his mother chatted about this and that. She scolded him for his tardiness and went on about plans that the family had for Christmas. The conversation was odious to him and impossible to comprehend. That was her world and not his. He never said a word, and his mother never noticed his quiet sorrow in the darkness of the back seat.

This time he did not cry, but bore the weight of his grief silently in a way that he thought was right for a man. He was learning about all of these things.

rlp

Click here to read the other Foy Davis Stories

Advent was just one of the things they didn’t tell him about at the Baptist seminary. They also never told him about the lectionary, liturgy, Epiphany, Lent, or Ash Wednesday. All the high church stuff. It was too close to Catholicism.

When he first moved to San Antonio he saw a woman with a black smudge on her forehead. He discretely let her know about it.

“You’ve got something on your forehead,” he said softly.

The woman looked surprised. “It’s ashes.”

Foy was confused by her reply. “Ashes, you know, whatever. I was just letting you know that something was on your forehead.”

He learned about liturgical worship at a local Episcopal church where he liked attending evening services and also sitting alone in the sanctuary praying and sometimes dozing off.

That was before his own church had a building, back when he used to study and read at Ben’s office. The Episcopal church was on his way home, and sometimes he would call Jenny and tell her he would be late so he could stop off for prayers. Thursday evenings were nice because Sam would administer the sacrament of unction. On Thursdays there was sometimes twenty people present. They would line up at the altar, and Sam would come by anointing their foreheads with oil that smelled like flowers.

Foy had never seen anything like it. The only healing services he knew about were the embarrassing ones on television, where people threw walkers and canes down the aisles, and the ministers slapped their palms against people’s foreheads. But somehow in the Episcopal church healing seemed right and good. He loved kneeling at the altar. He felt like a regular person and not just a minister. That was the nicest part of it, kneeling there incognito, waiting for Sam to touch his forehead.

There was an special prayer for unction, and Sam said it to each supplicant. You could hear his prayers from down the line. At first a little baritone rumble like distant thunder, then a rolling murmur, then words you could understand; then he was right in front of you. His words seemed powerful because of the repetition. Like chanting. His finger would make the sign of the cross on your forehead, and it was all done for you. It was only for you. Yours.

Later Foy would touch the oily spot on his forehead and smell his finger, breathing deeply the flowers and feeling it make a difference inside his head.

Sometimes he slipped into the sanctuary and was the only one there. He would sit about four rows back and stare at the altar and the cross suspended above it by wires. The quiet was always a surprise. The noises from outside seemed to be coming from another world.

There was another man who sometimes came to pray. He seemed capable of extraordinary concentration and would sit, lost in his prayers for long periods of time. Foy was always looking around to see what everyone else was doing. He didn’t like that about himself.

After seeing each other five or six times, the man came over and introduced himself.

“Hi, my name’s Robert. I’ve been seeing you here a lot lately, so I thought I would come and meet you. You’re not a member of the church, are you? I’ve never seen you on Sunday.”

“No,” said Foy. “I just like stopping by to be alone and pray. It’s so beautiful, you know?”

“Yeah. Well, you’re always welcome here.”

After that they always nodded at each other or said hello.

Sometimes Robert would play the organ, and the music would fill the room so completely that it felt like you had left the earth altogether. Foy loved these times and would close his eyes and let the music be the only thing in the world.

The day came when the polite nods and hellos turned into a small conversation. Foy told Robert that he was the pastor of a local Baptist church. Robert said that he was the music minister and invited Foy to his office near the vestry. There was a keyboard, a table covered with sheet music in neat piles, and nothing silly at all on the shelves. It was a very serious and nice office. “It feels like Robert,” he thought.

On that day the conversation turned in an unexpected and intimate direction. Robert told Foy that he was gay, a thing that surprised Foy greatly. He didn’t know there were Christian churches that would have a homosexual person as a minister. He didn’t know what he thought about that either.

Once Douglas came by the church to see Robert, and Foy happened to be there. They seemed peaceful together and had been partners for a number of years. They were in their 40s.

“Thank Christ I don’t have to make decisions about Robert and his life and the church and all that. I’m nobody here, so it’s not my problem.”

Time passed gently for awhile, slipping along with no bumps or surprises. There was morning and there was evening, day after day. Months passed and Foy became familiar with the Book of Common Prayer and the quiet ways of what he now called his Episcopal church.

About half a year after he met Robert, Foy became aware that Jenny was deeply unhappy and on the verge of leaving him. The awareness of this came like a flash of inspiration. One day he knew nothing of it, and the next day he knew everything. There followed a frantic time where he tried to salvage things with frenetic energy, but it was like scrambling for receipts the day before taxes are due. It’s too late and there is too much. The best you can do is not enough.

His depression was raging but still unnamed in those days. He sunk down to a place where he was numb except for the constant feeling that something very bad was about to happen and the feeling that there was no chance in hell that all this religious stuff was true.

He dragged himself into the sanctuary one afternoon and was glad that no one was there. He sat in his favorite pew and let his head drop down almost to his knees.

“I don’t have to do this, you know? Just say the word. Hell, I don’t even know if you exist. The truth is, I’m pretty sure you don’t exist, but I can’t stop talking to you. You can’t have someone like me being a pastor. You can’t. It’s not right. I mean, the pastor does need to be sure about some things, doesn’t he? There is a bare minimum of belief, don’t you think? Yeah, me too and I don’t have it.”

He tried some of his prayer tricks. He listened close and then let his hearing go all the way out past the church to the freeway where he could faintly hear the trucks going by. It didn’t work. Staring at the cross didn’t work. Breathing deeply and letting the relaxation begin behind his eyes didn’t work. Nothing worked, and his agitation grew.

One of the bad times started happening.

“O God, I have fucked up my life. I’m in the wrong job; I don’t know what’s going to happen with Jenny and the girls; I don’t have any money. I can’t just quit or I would. You can’t possibly want me. You find some way of letting me know that you want me out and I’ll go. I swear I will. I’ll just find a job and be a regular guy if I can figure out how to do that.”

There was the clicking sound of a door behind him and to the left. Foy opened his eyes to find Robert standing by the end of the pew.

He was apologetic. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I’ve been meaning to give you something and I keep forgetting, so I wanted to make sure that I didn’t forget the next time I saw you.”

He paused for a second, then continued.

“I was talking with Sam and the other staff about you, and we all agreed that we should give you your own key to the church so that you can come and go whenever you want. We like having you around here; it’s nice. It feels right.”

He held out a little silver key which Foy took with a trembling hand just as he burst into tears. These were racking sobs that made him ashamed so he put his face down and into his hands. Robert put his hand on his back and leaned over a little.

“Hey, are you okay? Well, I guess you’re not, but is there anything I can do?”

Foy looked up with his eyes blurry and his nose running.

“No, I’m sorry. Please don’t worry about me. This just means something…it’s big for me right now. Important. I can’t explain it; it’s too much, but thank you. Tell them It helped me more than they could know.”

Robert looked hesitant to leave, but respectfully withdrew. Foy got up and walked to the back of the church. It was the season of Epiphany and there was a picture of the magi on the literature table beside Sam’s sermon manuscripts. Foy gazed at the picture with intense longing and it seemed like a voice came from the ceiling.

“Even the pagans were called in their own way, to His presence.”

He wiped his nose on his finger and then wiped his finger on his jeans. He looked up to the ceiling and whispered.

“A gay man just gave me a key to his church and said that I was always welcome. A gay man welcoming a Baptist minister to church. Ain’t that some backwards shit? That is hilarious.”

There was the smallest ray of hopeful feelings born of a rogue giggle that popped out the side of his mouth. He looked up to the ceiling again.

“Okay. I understand. I’ll try.”

rlp

Click here to read other Foy Davis stories

This story originally appeared in two parts

The elevator doors slid open every morning, and there was your world. It was a world of fluorescent lights, fabric covered cubicle walls, and off-white plastic cases. It was a world of facades. Behind and inside everything was something else. There was a little vent on the side of Foy’s computer that emitted a steady stream of warm air. Once or twice a week, Foy would find himself staring at this vent, and he would feel compelled to lean in and sniff the odor of electricity, hot circuits, and plastic. The first time he did this he whispered, “That smells like technology.”

There were no seasons in this world. The temperature hovered around seventy degrees at all times. The only evidence of winter, for example, was the sudden appearance of coats, scarves, and other padded clothing on the people who got off the elevators. They shed these as they walked into the office, growing thinner with each step.

All the colors were neutral, all the edges were rounded, and everything was bathed in artificial light. It was like an environment drawn up in a board room and fleshed out by an action committee.

His old world had been richly textured. There were candles and dark wooden pews. There were robes made of rich cloth, and solid tables that held ancient elements. There were the lines on the faces of the elderly and the noises of children. There were the toys and other silly things stuffed here and there into the bookshelves of his old office. There was the sound and feel of his pen scratching out sermons on luxurious linen paper. There was the wonderful moment before worship when a deep bell rang three times, and everyone, even the children, became solemn.

There was great tension in his life in those days. Not the kind that comes from external pressure, but the kind that exists between truths. He lived along the slippery plane of a great continuum between life and death, flesh and spirit. He was in and out of people’s lives, baptizing them, blessing them, marrying them, and burying them. And all of this while the year moved gracefully through the seasons, Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and the long waiting they call Ordinary Time.

But there were some good things about this world too. For one thing, you could leave it. It took Foy a long time to get used to the idea that he could leave his job at the end of the day, and the thought of that still made him giddy. He watched people trudging toward the elevators and wanted to shout, “We can leave! Isn’t that wonderful?” But they wouldn’t understand because they had always been able to leave. They couldn’t imagine a job that you could never leave, not even for a moment.

He had been a little disappointed at first when he found out there were no punch cards. When he was young, he used to have a job where you punched out. You shoved a thick time card into a slot, and it made a satisfying “Ka-chunk” sound. Now you unhooked your ID card from your lapel and swiped it through a computer slot. When the green light came on you were good to go.

Over by the copier there was a smudge on the wall of a cubicle with an empty frame hanging around it. Apparently a woman named Doris, who wore too much makeup and was also said to have been a pain in the ass, fainted one day and slumped against the wall, leaving a smear of fleshy color on the fabric. Tom the technical writer brought the frame and hung it there, turning the smudge into a work of art.

Doris ended up leaving for reasons that no one remembered. Tom left, it was said, because they outsourced most of the technical writing to Pakistan. But the picture was still on the wall two years later, and there were still people around who knew the story behind it. Foy wondered what would happen if everyone who knew the story left. He could imagine the day when someone noticed the smudge and the frame, puzzling over them before dropping the frame in the trash and cleaning the wall. What would be left of Doris and Tom?

There were a lot of good stories floating around the office, many of them linked to various artifacts like stains, broken furniture, curious traditions, and quirky rules that obviously came into existence following some incident. In the cubicle village, how long you worked there was less important than your ability to hear and learn the stories and the corporate lore. Foy learned stories qu