Point of No Return (34 page)

“Anything at all,” the man said as he struggled to smile. “Just point me in the right direction.” His teeth appeared yellow behind the gray stubble on his face. The lines around his eyes seemed to point like arrows at their redness.

Whit tried to imagine who he'd send a man in this condition to, but he couldn't think of anyone. “I wish I could help you,” he said. “I really don't know of anyone who's hiring. And I don't have anything around here that needs done. I'm sorry. I hope you find something.”

“Thanks anyway,” the man said as he turned to leave. Whit closed the door and went back up to his study. He was about to start working again but first yielded to the temptation to look out the window. The man had walked down the sidewalk to the street and now stood as if he couldn't decide which way to turn.

Whit let the curtain fall back into place. He felt a pang of guilt. He could have offered the man something temporary at Whit's End, he knew. There were floors to be swept, windows to be washed, dishes to be cleaned. Even around the house, Whit could have paid the man a few dollars to rake the leaves. A list formed in Whit's mind of all the things he could have done for the stranger but didn't think about at the time because he
had to
get the questions for the Bible contest finished.

It's not too late
, Whit thought and leapt to his feet. He tossed aside the curtains and reached for the window, preparing to throw it open and call for the man to come back. His fingers were clasped around the latch when he saw the sidewalk and street were empty. The man was gone.

With a heavy heart, Whit sat down at his desk and slowly returned to the Bible contest questions. There were no other interruptions that afternoon.

Tom Riley, Whit's best friend, arrived as planned at 5:30 to pick Whit up for the evening's activities at Whit's End.

“Ready?” Tom asked in his gentle, folksy accent as Whit climbed into the passenger side of the car.

“I think so,” Whit answered. “How did it go at the shop this afternoon?”

Tom pulled the car out of the driveway and into the street. “No particular problems,” he said. “Except you might want to take a look at the train set. The Baltimore and Ohio keeps coming off the tracks. It won't be too long before they all come apart.”

“I'll look at it later tonight,” Whit said, knowing his friend was trying to make a point.
You need help
, is what Tom Riley was really saying behind his comment about the train set. Whit knew it was true. Apart from sporting the county's largest running train set, Whit's End also had an ice-cream parlor, a library, a theater, and dozens of rooms filled with interactive displays. It was little wonder that Whit's End had become one of the most popular places for the children in Odyssey to play. But the success of the shop made it hard for Whit to keep up with all the things needing taken care of, and harder still for him to find the right kind of people to work there.

Employees came and went quickly. Whit was never satisfied with any of their work. He figured he could do it all better himself. Tom had said just the other day that Whit was being “too picky.”
Maybe he was right
, Whit thought. In all of Odyssey, Tom was the only one Whit trusted in the shop. Earlier in the afternoon Tom had kept an eye on things while Whit worked on the Bible contest questions.

“You can't do it all,” Tom said. “And I can't keep helping you. I have a farm to run.”

“I know, Tom, and I'm grateful.” Whit watched the evening light explode blues, yellows, and oranges behind the houses and, in the distance, the larger buildings of downtown Odyssey. They were approaching the edge of McAlister Park, where the autumn leaves spread like a carpet over the playing fields and under large collections of trees. Tom would have to drive around the edge of the park for another mile before reaching the Victorian-style building housing Whit's End.

Tom adjusted the shoulder strap on his overalls. “There was one peculiar thing that happened today,” Tom said.

“Oh?” Whit's thick white eyebrows lifted and nearly blended with the wild, white hair on the top of his head.

Tom nodded. “A man I'd never seen before came in to Whit's End. He was a little shabby-looking, like he hadn't had a bath or changed his clothes in a long time.”

Whit thought of the man who had come to his door that afternoon. “Did he say anything?”

“That's what was so odd. I thought he was going to ask for a handout, but he didn't. He just sat in one of the booths for a while and drank some water. He showed an interest in the posters for the Bible contest tonight, but didn't say anything else. After a while, he left.”

Whit scrubbed his chin thoughtfully and felt the pang of guilt again. He should have done something for the man. “Sounds like the same man who came to my door this afternoon. I'm ashamed to say I was so preoccupied with the Bible contest, I didn't offer to help him. I feel bad about it now.”

Tom shook his head. “Funny you should mention it,” he said. “I kept thinking to myself that I should give the man some food, but I got so busy with the kids that I never did it. He was gone before I realized.”

“So much for good intentions,” Whit said.

They reached the front of Whit's End where kids were already lined up to take part in the Bible contest. Whit grabbed his Bible and stack of questions from the front seat and didn't think again about the stranger—until later that evening when the stranger would be
all
he'd think about.

CHAPTER TWO

“W
HAT DID
J
AMES SAY
was like the small rudder of a ship?” Whit asked from his podium on the Little Theatre stage in Whit's End.

The remaining group of contestants, sitting in a semicircle, wiggled in their chairs and scratched their heads. Only five players remained. The rest had been eliminated throughout the evening by not knowing the answers to where specific Bible verses were found, or who wrote what books, or which person did what and where it was done.

The Bible contest was one of the many ways Whit used to help bring the Bible to life for kids. He believed the more fun they had with Scripture, the more they'd get out of it. This evening's contest proved the point: The kids cheered for the various contestants, calling out answers and groaning when an obvious answer escaped them. They didn't do it for the prize (which, in this case, was a week's worth of ice cream at Whit's End). They did it for the fun.

“The tongue!” Karen Crosby exclaimed in a burst of excitement and nearly fell out of her chair.

“You're right,” Whit said. The crowd applauded as Whit turned over his question card. He picked up another. “Which three disciples went with Jesus to a high mountain where they saw Him speak with Elijah and Moses?”

Oscar's hand shot up. “Peter, John, and Matthew!” he shouted.

Whit smiled at the round-faced boy. “Sorry, Oscar. It wasn't,” he said.

“Oh, man.” Oscar frowned and gave up his seat on the stage. Whit was sorry to see the boy leave, since he was often teased for not being very bright. He had surprised everyone by making it so far into the contest.

“It was Peter, John, and
James
!” Lucy Cunningham-Schultz cried out in her mousy voice.

“You're correct!” Whit announced.

Lucy giggled and Karen said graciously, “Good going, Lucy.”

“All right, Lucy!” Jack Davis cheered from the audience. Then he and Matt Booker began to chant, “Looo-seee! Looo-seee! Looo-seee!” until Whit waved his arms to quiet them down.

It was down to Lucy, Karen, Mike Henderson (a pastor's son), and Jamie Peck, a boy of 10 who was extremely smart for his age. Whit couldn't imagine who the winner would be since they were all so evenly matched.

He continued, “In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, a young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. In verse 21, Jesus gave the young man specific instructions. What did He say to do?”

The contestants squirmed awkwardly as they each tried to think of the answer.

“Sell what you own and give the money to the poor and follow Me,” an adult voice said from the back of the auditorium.

It was such a surprise that Whit almost said “Right!” before he realized the wrong person spoke. Heads turned and necks craned to see who had spoken. Whit shielded his eyes from the stage lights. He barely made out the form as it moved forward to the center of the audience.

“I'm sorry, but we don't allow answers from the audience,” Whit said, still unable to see who had spoken.

“But that's the right answer,” the man said. “Sell what you own and give the money to the poor and follow Me.”

The auditorium was completely silent as the kids and some of the few attending parents watched the stranger with wide, worried eyes. Tom, who'd been standing in the wings, now took a few steps onto the stage just to show that another adult was present—just in case the man meant to cause trouble.

The man walked closer to the stage and Whit finally recognized him. It was the same one who had come to his door earlier in the afternoon. He was in the same drab, dirty clothes with matted hair and scratchy stubble. Whit found nothing dangerous in the man's tone or in how he moved. In fact, Whit thought he looked like a man who might be walking and talking in his sleep. There was an unreal calm, even sadness, in his demeanor.

He rubbed a hand over his greasy hair and said, “I'm sorry to interrupt. I really am. But I was watching this contest—watching how good these kids are with their Bibles—and I thought I oughtta say something. You see, I've been out of work for about 10 months. I was a printer in Connellsville, and the new computers took away my job. I don't have anything against computers or the folks who use them, but they put me out of work. What could I do? Printing is all I know—”

Whit held up a hand. “Look, sir, maybe we should talk about this somewhere else.”

The stranger shook his head. “Please,” he said. “I won't take much of your time. I just thought you Bible-believing people might be interested in what I have to say. I'm not complaining. I was just sitting in the back thinking that
knowing
about the Bible is one thing, while
doing
what the Bible says is another.

“You folks seem to have it all worked out about what Jesus said in the Bible, and that's a good thing. Even the young man in the chapter you read seemed to have it all worked out. He kept the Ten Commandments. But Jesus said to
follow
Him and, well, the young man went away sad. I just wonder if we understand what it means when Jesus says to follow Him. Do we?”

Here the man slowly turned to look at his audience. The kids clung to every word. “What do we Christians mean by following in the steps of Jesus?

“I've been wandering around your town for two days trying to find a job. I don't mean printing, I mean
any kind
of job. And in all that time I haven't had a word of sympathy or comfort from anyone, except your Mr. Whittaker here who said he was sorry for me. Everyone else turned away—or turned me away.

“Now I know you can't all go out of your way to find jobs for people like me. I'm not asking you to. I'm just trying to figure out how those words in the Bible connect to our lives, to what we should say or do when someone in need comes up to us. When Jesus said to follow Him,
what did He mean
? Did He mean to just get on with our lives, or was He talking about something more—something that would make a difference in our world?”

He scanned the audience, then slowly continued, “I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I should be able to get a job somewhere if I really wanted one. That's what all the people who have jobs and homes and money say. They don't understand how hard it is. My wife died a few months ago and I thank God she's out of this trouble. My daughter is…well, she's taken care of. I never wanted to be a burden to her or anybody else. But nobody in Connellsville could help me, so I made my way toward Odyssey. I thought,
Here's a place where folks are living well. There's got to be something there for me
.”

The man stopped for a moment and pressed his hand against his mouth as if trying to stifle a scream. He swayed slightly. Whit and Tom took a step toward him, but stopped when he spoke again. “I'm puzzled, that's all. Everyone's doing so well in this town, and Jesus said things like ‘Sell what you own, give money to the poor, and follow Me' and I'm trying to figure it out in my mind. My wife died in a tenement building in Connellsville. It was owned by a Christian landlord and, even though she died, he told me I had to pay my rent or leave right away. He was a Christian man and said he felt bad for making me leave. I guess he felt bad the same way the young man in the story felt bad.

“Jesus said to follow Him, and we always feel bad when we don't. Maybe we just don't understand what He means. Or maybe we do and we just feel bad because we don't think we can do what He wants. I don't know. Maybe we don't even ask ourselves what it really means to follow Him. Do we ever ask, ‘What would Jesus do if He were in my situation?' What would Jesus do if He had a nice house and a good job and decent family but knew there were folks outside who didn't have any of those things? What would Jesus do to help folks like me who have to walk the streets or who die in tenements or who—?”