House of Gold (17 page)

On the fifth Sunday, there he was again. Reading the Sports Section.

"Cavs won!" Buzz shouted. "Mark Price had thirty-seven points!"

"I don't follow the Cavs," the Man said.

"Why do you keep telling me that? I never said you did."

That does it. Now I'm pissed.

"What are you doing
on my porch every other Sunday?" the Man asked.

"Reading. Praying. Do you mind?"

"Yes. I have to ask you to stop doing this. You obviously think you're going to wear me out and convert me or something. Don't think I don't know what you're like. I like playing hoops with you, Buzz, and some of your friends are very classy," the Man paused, letting the small insult–
that Buzz was not classy
–sink
in, "but you can't come here like this. I'm not interested."

"Interested in what?" Buzz asked back, grinning.

This boy is a lunatic.
The Man sighed.

"Just go home, Buzz. And don't come back."

"Okay," Buzz conceded, his smile fading. Then, "But can I finish the Sports Section before I go?"

The Man didn't answer. He calmly closed the door. Buzz only stayed for an hour that Sunday.

And promptly returned
the following Sunday, the Sunday before Christmas. Reading the paper, bundled up in a heavy winter parka, his hands enclosed in woolen mittens. It had snowed the night before, and it was windy and cold.

When the Man opened the front door, he was genuinely surprised to see him–more surprised than on the first Sunday. Buzz was having trouble negotiating the paper with his thick mittens.

"Good mornin'!"
Buzz shouted. "Cavs didn't play last night. Jacks won, though."

"I don't follow the Lumberjacks." The Man's voice was colder than the current wind.

"Me neither," Buzz said. The Lumberjacks were the local minor league hockey team. "Hey, I'm getting tréjà-vu, you know, tréjà-vu–that strange, eerie certainty that I've done this exact same thing twice before."

The man ignored the Buzzian observation
or joke–or whatever it was.

"You've got to stop doing this," he said plainly.

"No, you've got to stop doing this," Buzz replied, looking up, looking the Man in the eye for the first time since this bizarre chess game had begun.

"Don't make me call the police," the Man said with a slight snarl, throwing back his shoulders.

"Then call them. I'll come back next week."

"I could get a restraining order."

"Then do it."

"Calling my bluff?" the Man asked.

"Yes. So call the police. Bring the full weight of the court system to bear on your best friend in the world. I'm going to finish reading my paper."

"You're not my friend. And that's
my
paper," the Man snapped, lightly hopping from foot to foot. He was standing in his pajamas behind the screen door.

"Then I'm going to finish reading
your
paper,"
Buzz said in a sarcastic tone. Then to himself, looking at the paper again, under his breath, "I couldn't name three players on the Lumberjacks."

"Have it your way."

The Man closed the door. And called the police. As if impelled by a sixth sense, Buzz leapt from the porch like a cat and drove off in his battered Festiva a minute before the cruiser arrived.

"Do you know this man who came to your
porch?" the officer asked a few minutes later.

"Yes, I play basketball with him."

"How long have you known him?"

"Almost ten years. But not socially."

"Has he made any threats or violent actions towards your person?"

"No," the Man replied honestly.

The officer made a sympathetic boy-people-can-be-weird face. "Then call us if he trespasses again."

Buzz showed up the following Saturday, the day
before Christmas. The Man didn't open the door. He called the police first. Then he came to the door, wearing a coat.

"Hi!" Buzz greeted him cheerfully, as if he had been invited over. He wasn't reading the paper. He stood facing the Man at the door.

"I've called the police again. Would you please leave? I'm going to get a restraining order next. Please, stop doing this."

"You stop doing this,"
Buzz replied once again, genuine sadness in his voice.

"Stop doing what?"

"You know exactly what."

"Spell it out for me," the Man insisted, ice in his voice.

"Shutting me out. Shutting everybody out."

The Man didn't reply. He opened and closed his mouth.

"When the police come," Buzz continued, "you're going to have to tell them to arrest me."

The Man thought about this.

"What do you want from
me?" the Man asked.

"Right now, a cup of coffee–I'm freezing. And somebody to hang out with on Sunday."

There was a childlike honesty in Buzz's voice. He did have a way...

...and the Man found himself being–swayed.

"What about your friends?" the Man asked.

"They've got families. I want to hang out with somebody like me. Another loner–"

You don't know the meaning of loner,
the Man thought.
Or do
you?

The police cruiser pulled up behind Buzz.

"Police are here," the Man informed him, keeping his poker face.

Buzz heard the door of the cruiser opening, and the sound of the police radio popping, but didn't turn around. The Man looked over Buzz's shoulder and recognized that this was the same officer as last week.

"Well?" Buzz asked.

"Excuse me, sir," the policeman asked the Man. "Do we have
a problem here?"

Buzz turned to half-face the officer, who was now at the bottom of the porch steps.

"Hi," Buzz said with a pleasant smile and a wave, then looked back to the Man.
Hail Mary, full of grace, please let the Man save face...

There was a long pause.

"No, officer," the Man replied. "We're just fine. Sorry to bother you."

He saw Buzz break out in a triumphant, joyful smile–ear to ear,
forehead to chin.

"Are you sure?" the officer asked again, looking at Buzz carefully.

Scanning for a weapon?
the Man asked himself.

Why did I call the police? It's only Buzz, for Pete's sake.

"No, we're old friends. We're okay," the Man said with a rare smile.

"Okay. If you're sure." The officer returned to his car.

"Come on in, Buzz."

"Thanks."

Buzz walked in the door, and noticing the boots
and shoes on the floor nearby, took off his own boots.

The Man's home was a study in simplicity and durability. A heavy-duty set of matching couch and easy chair. A large Philco television with a cherry cabinet–obviously many years old.

Books everywhere in solid, cherry or darkly-stained oak bookcases. Browns, blacks, soft yellows, with a touch of orange on the patterns of the heavy curtains.
When the Man bought something, he bought sturdy. He bought traditional.

"I don't have any coffee in the house," the Man explained gruffly.

"That's okay," Buzz said, pulling a small bag of beans out of his coat pocket. "Brought my own java. I know you don't drink coffee."

"How did you know that?"

"Don't tell me that in all these years you've known me, you haven't noticed that I just know things
about people?" Buzz replied, his coat off now. "Where do I hang this?"

"Give it here."

The Man hung the coat on a hanger in the front closet. Buzz noticed there were four other jackets neatly arranged there, and a black fedora with a white band resting alone on the upper shelf.

"I thought I was immune to your famous gift," the Man observed before turning to face Buzz.

"Nope. I know all about you,"
Buzz answered.

"You do, do you?"

"Yup."

The Man made no reply.

Buzz followed him into the kitchen. The Man retrieved his percolator from a cabinet and gave it to Buzz, who began to put together a pot of coffee. The Man decided to break his routine–what the hell–and began to scramble eggs. He poured them on an old, perfectly-cured cast-iron skillet.

They ate breakfast in silence. Buzz read the
Sports Section. The Man read the news.

Forty minutes later, Buzz thanked him for breakfast and left.

He came back every Sunday through February, and they shared silence and the newspaper. On the first Sunday in March, Buzz arrived to find a pot of coffee made with his favorite brand–Eight O'Clock–ready to go.

On the second Sunday in March, Buzz mentioned that there was confession at Saint Phil's
after the noon Mass.

"And you want me to go?" the Man inquired skeptically.

"Yeah. We could argue and talk about it for months on end, and you could start calling the cops again, or you could just skip the silent mystery man thing for once and make it easy on me and just go."

"How come you're so sure I'll go–now or ever?"

"I'm not. I'm just throwing underwear against the wall and seeing if it'll
stick. Well, then again, I am
pretty
sure. I've seen the books on your shelves. There sure is a hell of a lot of Chesterton in this house."

"And some C.S. Lewis," the Man pointed out.

"You're a believer."

"Intellectually," the Man conceded.

"You're a believer," Buzz repeated, boring in on him with his sleepy eyes.

The Man looked away. This was unusual for him during their rare conversations.

A believer or a coward,
the older man thought.
An old coward.

The conversation ended. Fifteen minutes later, when the Man reached into the closet to get Buzz's woolen Red Sox jacket (with leather sleeves–a Christmas gift from Sam and Ellie years ago), he also grabbed his own coat, then drove in silence with Buzz to Mass at Saint Phil's. The Man didn't receive Communion, but afterwards he went to
confession–for five minutes.

"That was fast," Buzz remarked in the car on the way back to the Man's place.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," the Man suddenly repeated, jolting Buzz. "It's been twenty-six years since my last confession. I haven't gone to Mass during that time, and I've been a pride-filled loner who has rejected my own-family and alienated every person who has ever been a friend."

"Bet that threw him for a loop," Buzz commented.

"He asked me why," the Man offered. Things were suddenly–loosened up–inside himself. This was certainly different. Unlike his confession during college,
something
had definitely
happened.

"You don't have to tell me," Buzz said. "But I'm dying to know."

"I told him I didn't know why I was that way. He asked me a few more questions, but there's not
much more to say. Then he absolved me."

"Can I ask you something?" Buzz asked.

The Man paused. They were at a red light. Buzz turned to look at him.

"Okay," the Man replied.

"Would you put this scapular on?"

Buzz pulled it out of his pocket. It looked old. In fact, it was almost five years old.

"It's the same one Donna offered to you at the Revco Ten Thousand. You didn't want to put it on then.
She's been praying for this day for four years. She asked me to bring you back home the day she went into the convent."

The Man stifled an urge to cry. Still, his eyes watered up pretty darn quick. Buzz looked back to the road to preserve the Man's dignity–but he still held up the scapular.

The Man took it.

+  +  +

Buzz came to visit the following Sunday–and also "dropped by" for dinner on every
Tuesday and Thursday.

He knew above all things that the Man was a creature of habit. Sometimes he brought Mark Johnson along. The Man started–only by a relative measure–to open up in conversation, and even to enjoy himself. He found that Buzz was well-read–surprisingly well-read–and could actually hold a decent conversation about history. At first, besides Sister Regina–formerly known as Donna
Beck–who received the glorious news of the Man's reversion by letter from Buzz, only Mark Johnson knew about this turn of events in the Man's life.

Buzz, Mark, and the Man became friends. Mark began stopping by on Tuesdays with Seamus for dinner. Sometimes, they all watched a video which Buzz would rent. Only westerns or war movies.

The Man fully returned to the practice of the sacraments, and
began methodically working his way through the classics of Catholic spiritual life: the Little Flower, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Francis De Sales, Saint Teresa of Avila. He took to the devout life with ease, and soon had Father Dial as his spiritual director. In Father Dubay's timeless work,
Fire Within,
he found a key that unlocked the door to the endless Trinitarian universe within and
without–the basics of contemplative prayer.

He remained on the surface as he was below the surface–quiet, private, reserved–a bookworm. But now he was a
Catholic
man of solitude. He was the only person in the world whose presence actually calmed and quieted the hyperkinetic Buzz Woodward, so Buzz also drew a peculiar strength and peace from their friendship.

The following summer, when Bill White
invited the Man over for a gathering with the Johnsons after a run on the courts, the Man shocked him when he accepted the invitation. Soon he became a silent but reassuring regular at the Penny Parties, where he insisted on being called Hal. His name was Hal Smith. His odd nickname was reserved for the courts, he explained, not for friends. They all still couldn't help but refer to him as the
Man when he was not with them.

After all, Hal Smith
was
the Man. And now he was
their
man. And Jesus was
his
Man.

And so it came to be that it was the Man who suggested to Buzz over Sunday breakfast the following summer that he might-maybe-should consider starting something up with that little redhead friend of Marie Penny–Melanie O'Meara.

"She's too high-strung for me," Buzz scoffed.

"That's
what you need," the Man replied.

"But she can't stand me."

"She doesn't know you. Give her a try. You're both lonely. You're both, uh, different."