Otherworld (8 page)

They sat in silence for a while. Outside, a bird chirped, and the sound came into the room unusually loud, as will happen when two people are frozen in quiet, each acutely aware of every breath, each lingering uncomfortably, anticipating a word from the other. The rise and fall of Grandpa's chest slowed.

“What did you do this afternoon?” the man asked.

“I was here. I didn't do anything.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to stay with you.”

“You should've gone out and played with your friends.”

“I can do that some other time.”

They quieted again and accepted the realization that death was near.

“Does Aunt Faye know?” the boy asked.

“No, no. You'll need to call her, I guess. I didn't want to worry her. I'm sure she'll be upset for not knowing, but I'd rather it be this way.” He paused. “You'll have to live with her, you know.”

“I know.”

“She's a good lady. You'll like living with her.”

“I know.”

They both bowed their heads as if they'd rehearsed this moment. Graham was thinking. Grandpa whispered a prayer under his breath, but the boy could not understand it.

Blessed assurance …

The boy began to cry.

Jesus is mine …

Then the old man breathed his last and passed on, still clutching his grandson's hand. He left without any last wishes or parting words or dying speeches … just a legacy. A legacy of faith and prayer and devotion.

This is my story, this is my song …

Graham went to live with his aunt Faye and grew into manhood in her care, but he attributed any good that was in him to the love his grandfather showed him and the Love he found in a little country church one autumn morning.

Praising my Savior all the day long.

 

“Looks like he's been dead awhile,” one of the crowd announced matter-of-factly.

The men gathered together on the muddy bank of the river. Some stood. Others squatted down for a closer look. One man with a long pole in his hand stood in the river itself, knee-deep in the murky water. He had a body snagged on a hook attached to the pole's end and drew it to the shore. The body was that of a middle-aged man with a full beard. He was puffy, bloated, translucently white with blotches of violet from the water and the weather. When they rolled him over, his eyes were open and bulging, glassy and swollen. The flesh on his face and skin had separations, rifts from the gradual sloughing off.

They quickly went to work putting him inside a large black bag. They sealed it with a zipper and struggled to carry it to an ambulance waiting up on the shoulder of the road that ran along the riverbank. They slammed the doors shut and drove away.

A few yards from the men's deep footprints, a boy sat cross-legged in the mud. No one had thought to shoo him away from the gruesome discovery. His eyes remained wide open, and he stared at the river. It flowed lazily, carrying limbs and leaves with it, and he half-expected to see another body come floating along. He had discovered the body while fishing. He looked out and saw what appeared to be a man floating on his back. He was just riding the current. His buddy Len went to notify the proper authorities, who arrived and left before Len's return.

A summer fishing expedition was cruelly interrupted. And now, alone, the boy was consumed with thoughts of the events that had transpired before him. He saw it. A blue-skinned, mouth-open, drifting for who-knows-how-long corpse. He had only wanted to catch a few bass with his friend, but he had come face-to-face with … well, with death. And the image lodged in his mind, braced against his sense of adolescent well-being, forever haunting him. The trauma was real, heavy, big. It was all-caps: DEATH. That was the shadow memory trailing him. Something hit the ground beside him, splashing mud onto his pants. Then something struck his arm, and it hurt. It stung. Looking up, he saw Gary Newsome, the neighborhood bully, standing on the embankment, a brand-new BB rifle in his hand.

“Got you now, Michael Walsh!” Gary shrieked.

When someone calls you by your full name, they're either an authority, a stranger, or an idiot
, Mike decided, but he didn't sense the urge to approach Gary and decide which category he fell into. He just assumed
idiot
and, leaving his fishing rod in the mud, ran as fast as he could toward home.

His feet sloshed in the wetness of his shoes. He was already blaming Gary for the blisters he knew he'd get. But he ran. He brought his feet down over and over, pounding the pavement, leaving muddy footprints and hoping Gary would slip on them. His little-kid mind remembered winning third place in the hundred-yard dash on Field Day at school, and he had the hysterical thought that if they had sent Gary Newsome after him with a BB gun, he may have won first. Gary, in hot pursuit, managed to get three or four more shots off. Two struck Mike in the back, and he yelped and arched his back and ran faster. Mike could feel the other BBs whiz by his ear. Gary had a good aim, that's for sure, but it was difficult to run and pump up the air rifle at the same time.

“I'll get you later,” Gary said, and he gave up the chase, likely heading to the woods to hunt squirrels or rabbits or any other small forest creatures unfortunate enough to encounter this adolescent madman.

Once safe inside the security of home, Mike checked his wounds. The BBs left red welts, but none had penetrated the skin. He sought the comfort of his bedroom and sprawled out on the floor to read a comic book. He read not a word, though, and registered none of the pictures. All he could see was the body of the man in the river.

The year was 1988.

Eight years later, Mike Walsh began his study of journalism in college. He joined the staff of the school newspaper, and his first assignment was to interview the star of the theater department's latest play. Her name was Molly, and she was beautiful. She had the most glorious hair he had ever seen, long and wavy hair of amber that caressed her shoulders, and she had blue eyes he could only describe as beguiling. A clunky camcorder on a tripod recorded the interview. He didn't want to miss anything. He wanted to see every wonderful blink and every word formed by her red lips.

He kept the videotape and played it back over and over in his dorm room just to hear her voice. He asked her out on a date, and she accepted his invitation. They went out for Italian food and caught a movie at the local multiplex. At the end of the evening, he knew he was in love, and he hoped she was too.

Four years after their first date, they married and began a new life in Houston. They loved each other very much, but as the years progressed, their relationship underwent times of stress. They always worked it out, though.

They spent thirteen years working it out, but the solutions came to a halt without warning. And now Mike Walsh recovered from his all-night meeting with the
Spotlight Magazine
staff by lying in bed, under attack from the memories.

The contents of that tape replayed in his dreams, and then the scene dissolved to another. He saw Molly walking out the door of their home, suitcase in hand, over and over and over again. Then he was running frantically from Gary Newsome, who was firing his BB gun at him. Each bullet found its target. And then he would tear into his house, scamper down the long hallway, and open the door to his bedroom, only to find himself standing in the mud by the river. The body drifted slowly to the shore.

Here was a man who learned a brutal lesson as a young boy. The impermanence of life. A man who sought the love of a woman who was gone. A man who faced a life of loss. Of pain. A life of staring down the deep, deep hole …

I've lost everything.

… that lay in his soul.

 

June 29, 1995. Two long buses pulled into the First Church parking lot, screeched to a halt, and opened their doors to spew a hundred or so road-weary teenagers onto the hot asphalt in Drury, Louisiana. All were tired and hungry and very eager to go home, shower, and go to bed forever. All, that is, but one. A nineteen-year-old boy, hair and eyes chocolate brown, emerged refreshed. He, like the others, had been awake for close to twenty-four hours, but unlike the others, he loved every minute of it. He was the only teenager smiling.

His parents stood waiting for him by their wood-paneled station wagon. He ran to them hurriedly.

“Did you have a good time?” his mother asked, as if it wasn't evident already.

The words
good time
didn't exactly describe it.

“Well, let's get on home, and you can tell us all about it.”

They gathered his bags and put them in the rear seat—the one that faced backward. The “back-back,” as they liked to call it. The boy's mouth ran the entire trip home and for quite a while once they arrived.

“I'm just glad you all came home before your birthday. I hated the thought of you spending it over there,” his mother said.

“It would have been fine by me,” Steven Woodbridge responded. “I could have stayed another whole week.” He changed his mind. “Another whole month,” he said, but something inside corrected even that, saying,
My whole life!

“Well, your dad and I are glad you're back, and we have a surprise for you.”

Surprise. They had a party scheduled for him that same night, but he had been tipped off weeks ago by a friend who “just couldn't keep a secret.” When evening came, they drove to the Drury West Community Center. The marquee read, HAPPY 19TH BIRTHDAY, STEVEN! and had balloons and streamers tied to it. All of his friends from school, work, and church were there, as well as the friends of his parents. In Drury, birthday parties were community affairs. They were big to-do's, and everyone was invited, no matter how distant a relation or acquaintance. Steve's parents spared no expense, because they were proud of their son.

His father's boss, Mr. Whitten, shook his hand. “Congratulations, Steven,” he said, and he grinned from ear to ear.

“For what?” Steve asked.
Congratulations
seemed like an unusual thing to say to someone on their birthday.

“For the licensing, of course.”

“Oh, right. Thanks.”

The licensing. Nearly a month prior, Steve graduated from high school, and a week later, his church presented him with a Certificate of License. It was a diploma-sized piece of parchment bought at the local religious bookstore. In Old English calligraphy, it made its declaration: THIS CERTIFIES THAT STEVEN J. WOODBRIDGE, WHO HAS GIVEN EVIDENCE THAT GOD HAS CALLED HIM INTO THE GOSPEL MINISTRY, IS LICENSED TO PREACH THE GOSPEL AND EXERCISE HIS GIFTS IN MINISTRY BY FIRST CHURCH OF DRURY, LOUISIANA, ON THE 17TH DAY OF MAY 1995. At the bottom, the church clerk and the pastor signed their names. Technically, this meant Steve could perform marriage ceremonies or funeral services, “the ol' marry and bury” as he liked to call it. Other than that, though, it was little more than a status symbol, at least to the people his parents concerned themselves with. Steve never really gave it much thought. At the age of sixteen, he had gone down the aisle one morning at church. He had just returned from a trip with the youth group, and he somehow had this incredible feeling that he was being
called
into something. Invited. Drawn, even. The counselor near the altar explained to him that this was God calling him to be a preacher. What did he know? He accepted, and his parents were overjoyed.

The day of his nineteenth birthday, he returned from a trip where all week he experienced a similar feeling.

“Hey, Steve. Tell me about Mexico,” said Tom D'Amato, the Woodbridges' neighbor.

Steve did not hesitate. “The single most awesome experience of my entire life.”

“Get out.”

“No, really.”

“It's probably the water.”

“Ha, right, the water.”

“Wasn't it, like,
dirty
?”

“Well, yeah—”