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GRACE

S
unday mornings when my father stepped up to the pulpit, I could almost hear the congregation groaning inside, saying to themselves:
Here we go again, another of Yawn's boring sermons.

The best thing about Reverend Edward Yourn was that he looked so earnest and impassioned. Sincere blue eyes, silky black hair, this fine smile—I hoped I'd keep looking like him, because he's great that way. If you hadn't heard him begin by announcing that his subject that morning was “Worship as a Time for Realignment,” you might have thought he was going to kick off a really provocative meditation the way they say Father Garzarella does at Holy Family. The sermon board down there promised things like “I Don't Believe the Bible,” and “Heeeeerrrrre's Jesus!”

Dad announced “Religion Without Righteousness,” or “The Meaning of Redemption.”

“Daddy has a more formal style,” my mother claimed “Some people prefer that.”

“Mom, his nickname is Yawn. In college they called him Snore.”

“It's just a play on our last name, Teddy.”

“I don't have nicknames like that. And I'm Ted, or Teddy Yourn. Dad is always Edward.”

“Not always.” Mom smiled. “I call him lots of things besides Edward.”

I am not a religious person. Dad said that a good many Preachers' Kids, in their teens, were not religious people. P.K. have to grow into it, Dad said.

I was fifteen. “I don't think I ever will,” I told him. “You
always
were. We're different.”

“How do you know I always was?”

“The kids called you Preacher in your high school yearbook.”

He'd get red whenever I mentioned the yearbook. He
was
probably afraid I was going to tease him about the infamous inscription from Taylor Train, known to us rock fans as Choo Choo or Chooch.

Dad went to school with him back in Columbia, Missouri.

When Chooch played concerts out in Montauk, about five miles from us on Long Island, the tickets were sold out months ahead of time. Locals would give up trying to get tickets, there were so many presolds, so many scalpers in on the action. And he literally stopped traffic. It was a good time to head for the beach.

When I was younger and stupid, I'd bring out Dad's yearbook to show kids. Who'd believe Dad not only went to school with Choo Choo but also was on the same page with him? That was before I knew that what I was really showing everyone was that my dad was a dork, world-class. The kids in his class wrote stuff like “Best wishes to The Preacher from Paul,” or “Good luck, Edward, with your ambition to spread the good word! Marilyn!”

The only one who wrote anything beyond one polite sentence was Taylor Train. He drew a bubble over his own head with zzzzzs inside it, and made his eyelids look closed. Then he drew an arrow over to Dad's photograph and wrote
This is me listening to you preach someday in the future, Edward! I bet you convert the world to atheism! Why is it always losers who go after sinners? T. T. Train.

“No one's asking you to be religious,” Dad said. “Just have grace.”

“Grace under pressure.” I smirked, regretting it instantly, because I really wasn't out to get Dad. I loved him. But he'd put that Hemingway quote about grace up on the sermon board once, and someone had taken a magic marker and drawn underneath it this picture of a naked girl being stomped on by a grinning gorilla.

“Don't ever let any joker spoil the word
grace
for you, Teddy,” Dad said. “I don't ask you to believe in anything you can't yet feel, but I do hope you'll have grace.”

“That sounds a little dirty to me, Dad.” Why was I always after him? Was it because he embarrassed me Sundays with those zzzzz sermons? Was I just self-conscious being a non-believing P.K.?

Dad said, “When you learn what grace is, it won't sound that way to you.”

“I know what it is. It's doing the right thing.”

Dad said, “It's doing the right thing and then more.”

We left it at that.

When I was a little kid, I idolized Dad. I thought he was the best, and all I wanted to do was grow up and be like him.

Then little by little—a little more every year—it began to dawn on me that he wasn't this great knight in armor I'd made him out to be. He was far from it.

Even people in his own congregation thought he lacked charisma. Some of the younger members said the day would come when the old diehards would pass away. Then they'd junk Dad.

The way I learned about all this was the way kids in a small town hear the word about their parents. “My father says your father is …”

Not up-to-date. Not bringing in enough young people because he's behind the times. And the old familiar word:
boring.

I remember a Sunday when we had a covered-dish dinner after church at the manse. It was over in a few hours. Meanwhile, Holy Family got bused down to the beach to dance and picnic, staying to watch the sunset. Even First Methodist thought up the idea of a sleigh ride one winter, going from house to house to pick up the parishioners and take them to the church hall for a square dance. Rabbi Silver, a big movie fan, instituted Flick Night on the synagogue grounds, Thursdays.

You couldn't fault Dad when it came to helping families get through illnesses or hard financial times—he was always right there in a pinch, but folks said he was better at sympathizing than socializing.

Mom was a little that way herself. She was better at repairing broken dolls and dressing them up for the Christmas boxes, and baking things for our churchyard Books and Cookies sales … but her idea of a Saturday night was reading a book, while Dad (always a last-minute writer) worked on his sermon. Sometimes the three of us watched an old film, or played Scrabble.

In church I went through the motions, and I suffered through the sermons. (
Good Lord, Dad, don't tempt Fate with a sermon on “How We Silence the Bible.” You raise the question “But How Do We Silence the Minister?”
) I became an okay athlete (soccer, tennis, wrestling), and I was in all the school plays. I grew to look like Dad, so I was fairly popular.

Then in my senior year I fell in love with a Korean girl named Jenifer Koh.

Because of her, that last year of high school was perfect. Both of us had jobs at the Gap after school. Both of us thought about skipping college, going right to New York, where I'd try out for theater and Jenifer would get a job in fashion. Both of us were into the same things: same music, same books and movies, same way of hanging out. We just plain enjoyed each other.

The only thing we didn't agree on was the postgraduation dinner party at Springside Inn. I wanted to skip it. We were going to the prom two weeks before the ceremony, and that was enough celebration from my point of view. But Jenny said she'd feel let down if we didn't have someplace to go after we were in our caps and gowns, particularly if the other seniors had plans.

Not all the other seniors
did
have plans. The party at Springside was going to cost a lot. A special jitney would take us up there, and a photographer would be tailing us to make sure we'd have a permanent record of the evening. Long Island T was playing for dancing afterward. It would come to $300 a couple.

Dad wanted me to take our names off the list.

“You don't have to pay for it.” I said. “I have savings.” He was already shelling out for the prom.

“That isn't why I don't want you to go, Ted. I've heard that some of your classmates feel left out. It's one thing to splurge for your high school prom—okay—but it's something else when right on top of it there's this special party for the elite after the graduation ceremony. I don't like it.”

“What does that mean, that I can't go?”

“It means I wish you'd reconsider.”

“Jenny really wants to do it. Dad. All our crowd is going!”

“Maybe when I tell her what
I
have planned, she'll change her mind.”

“Oh, Dad.” I couldn't imagine what he thought he could come up with that would make anyone change their minds, much less Jenifer.

“Well, Teddy, I've made some calls and word is out. I'm opening the Meeting House hall for a party after the ceremony. Fortunately, people can just walk here from school.”

I groaned again. “Dad, no one wants to come to the First Presbyterian Meeting House to celebrate!”

“Free of charge.”

“Dad, you couldn't
pay
kids to do it!”

“I think you're wrong about that, Son.”

“Don't do this to yourself, Dad.”

“It's already done. Taylor is coming by about eight o'clock. Everyone will have eaten by then. We'll have our ladies prepare their roast chicken and mashed with—”

“Wait a minute. … Wait. Taylor?”

“I think you call him Chooch.”

“Choo Choo Taylor is coming here?”

“He has a concert the very next night in Montauk. He said he thought it would be fun.”

Mom piped up. “He said, ‘Hey, Preacher Man, that sounds like it'd be a ball!' I was on the extension.”

Mom was all smiles, her face aglow, and Dad looked pretty pleased with himself. He said, “We're not going to tell the newspapers ahead of time.”

“We know all the names of the kids who aren't on the Springside list, and we're quietly calling them,” Mom said.

“Are you telling them Chooch is going to show up?”

“Of course,” said Mom. “We're asking them to try and keep it to themselves. We just don't want gate-crashers.”

I kept looking from one to the other, unable to believe my ears. “Dad, did you just call him up out of the blue? Did he remember you?”

“Oh, he remembered your father, honey. We told the concert manager that Reverend Yourn had to get in touch with Chooch, and before we knew it, he called back. He said, ‘How long has it been, Edward?' I was on the extension!”

“I can't believe you had the nerve!” I told Dad.

“He had the nerve,” Mom said, “because he wasn't doing it for himself.”

“Oh, I'll be glad to see Taylor again,” said Dad.

Jenifer couldn't believe it, either. I'd never even told her about Dad going to school with him, because I didn't want to drag out the yearbook to prove it … and then have her see the zzzzzz's.

Jenifer liked Dad. She said he was a little like her own father: reserved.

“My grandfather was a preacher too,” I told her. “He was reserved too.”

“Of course we're going to cancel Springside,” Jenifer said. “Choo Choo Train!” Jenifer said. … Jenifer said, “I can't believe it, Teddy!”

In school those last weeks I'd suddenly see a sly grin on the face of little Buddy Tonsetter, whose backpack always seemed bigger than he was, or a wink from Ellie Tutton, who was a foster child in this big family that specialized in kids of all colors and races. I felt a nudge in the hall from Karl Renner, whose dad had died of heart failure at Easter; and Dana Klaich, who worked at the Gap with Jenny and me, gave me a two-fingered salute in Cafeteria.

There were some cynical looks, too, from the wiseacres who hung out and mocked every tradition, ceremony, holiday—whatever; they were above it. Cal, Peter, Leary, Judge. But they weren't above Chooch. One of them would call out something like “We'll be seeing you, Yourn,” in this singsong threatening way, as though they were saying: Your old man better produce, kiddo!

I was getting nervous, then more nervous, then terrified.

Holy Cow,
I thought,
this is going to be some big mess if Chooch doesn't show … and why should he show? He didn't even like my father. Why should he show?

That was like a chant in my head:
Whyshouldheshow? Whyshouldheshow?
The night before graduation I actually prayed. I don't pray often, because I don't think there's anyone really there to hear me, but
I
could hear me, and it was reassuring to me that I'd go to any lengths not to have this turn out the way I was ninety percent sure it would.

All through graduation that was what I thought about. At least someday I'd be able to tell my kids what was on my mind back then. How many parents can claim to remember that?

I prayed:
Please let him come. Please don't let this be a disaster.
I thought:
Is this praying or thinking?
I thought:
Is this wishing or dreading?

I thought:
Oh shut up,
Teddy! What will be will be!

And then … then there we all were in the Meeting House, seated at four round tables decorated with roses from our garden, a few white balloons floating overhead … and Mom had even gone through my CDs to find Chooch's music. It was right up front with Mick Jagger, Billy Joel—all the ones who'd been around forever and would last that long, too. They were the ones at the heart of rock 'n' roll, the kind of performers who could make kids go ape.

Chooch's voice was rocking through the speakers.

The church ladies had cooked up a storm, and everybody was scarfing it down, talking, laughing, having a good time. But everybody was looking toward the door, too—in high gear, waiting, watching the clock.

Then it began. “Choo Choo Choo Choo”—kids imitating a train the way they did at his concerts when he'd walk onstage with his guitar strapped to him. “Choochoochoochoochoo!”

He had come in the back way.

He was slapping the backs of the boys at the first table, and blowing kisses at the girls, and they had started the
choo-
ing. Now the whole place was making that noise, and kids were on their feet, clapping, with Chooch heading toward my father's table, where there was a mike.

My father stood up, and Chooch gave him a sock on the shoulder, then leaned down and shook hands with my mother. “Shut up now!” he said over the mike. “I'm going to sing for my supper. I'm going to sing two songs now and then I'm going to eat. Then I'm going to sing two songs more, and I'm out of here!”