The Gate (6 page)

The sawmill was an old building made of barn wood, and the sunlight streaked in between the slats. The floor was covered with dirt and sawdust. At one end was a pile of newly cut logs in ten-foot lengths. Josh had a pencil on his ear and a list in his pocket, and he knew exactly how many pieces of each length he wanted. We measured and cut the boards to the lengths written on Josh's lumber list, and by mid-afternoon we had worked our way through several piles of lumber of various sizes. We had one-by-fours, two-by-fours, four-by-fours, two-by-sixes, and two-by-tens each separated and stacked in racks by size. The last stack of boards we had to cut were two-by-tens that were twelve feet long. They each needed to be trimmed to eleven feet seven inches. I measured and marked each board, and Josh cut them to size, but when we got down to the last board I discovered that it was three inches short.

“Do you want me to go get another two-by-ten out of the stacks?” I asked.

“No,” Josh said. “That's all right, we'll make do with this one.” Then he grabbed the board firmly with both hands and stretched it lengthwise like it was made of Play-Doh. When he handed it to me, I placed it on the pile with the others, and it was exactly eleven feet seven inches.

“There,” he said. “I think that's enough for today. I don't know about you, but I could use something to drink.” The two of us were both hot and sweaty and covered in sawdust, and as we walked over to an old pump in the corner of the barn, Josh
motioned to a row of cups on the wall. I found my name neatly lettered on one.

“Grab mine too, will ya?” Josh asked. And I did. We took turns pumping and drinking, and the lumber list fell out of his pocket and onto the dirt floor. As he picked it up I couldn't help but notice what it said at the top of the list.

“Excuse me, Josh,” I said kind of sheepishly. “But I think that piece of paper in your pocket has my last name on it.”

“You're right,” Josh replied. “It does. Does that surprise you? But you're not the only Hunt in the world, you know. Besides, I've always been very clear about this. When I left, I said that I was going to prepare a place for you. At the time, of course, the ‘you' was plural, but for anyone who answers when I knock on the door of their heart, it becomes singular, a personal promise between us. And I always make good on my promises.”

“You're not planning on making good on that promise to me anytime soon, are you?”

“It's always sooner than anyone thinks,” he said. “But not now, not today, anyway. That day will come when you least expect it, like a thief in the night.”

Thinking about one's own demise is always sobering, and as I sat and contemplated the gravity of his words, I thought how my death might impact the people I loved the most. I wanted to ask for more time, because they're not ready yet. To be honest,
I'm
not ready yet, and that's when I saw it: half buried in the sawdust was a little blue baseball cap with the name “Ben” stitched above the bill.

“That's Ben's hat!” I said excitedly.

“You're right,” Josh replied. “He lost it the summer he was seven when the two of you walked up here looking for pirate treasure.”

Memories came flooding back. One cloudy day in July, we packed a couple of peanut butter sandwiches and went exploring. Ben loved adventure, and he and I would often take a hike just to see what we could see. That day he wanted to pretend we were
pirates looking for lost gold. When we found that abandoned sawmill, it became our pirate ship for the afternoon.

We climbed up into the loft, swung on a rope that hung from the rafters, and made swords out of some one-bys. I was chasing Ben around, and as he tried to scamper up the ladder, he slipped and fell into the pile of sawdust. It knocked the wind out of him, and for a minute I thought he was really hurt bad. I was relieved when he caught his breath and started crying, but when I walked him back home my mother wasn't very happy with me.

“Where have you boys been?” she asked. “And why is Ben crying?”

Ben told her how he fell off a ladder in an old sawmill, and then she was all over me.

“You're supposed to be keeping an eye on him, Sky,” she said in a reprimanding tone. “What were you doing in a sawmill? Ben could have been killed or something. I swear, sometimes I wonder what you're thinking. If you can't keep out of trouble, then maybe you boys better stick around the cottage.”

That afternoon we had to stay inside and play Monopoly with my sister, which to two adventurous boys was just a waste of good daylight.

That night I said to Ben, “If you want to hang with the big boys, there's going to be no crying! Do you understand?”

He nodded that he did, and as far as I knew, Ben never cried again.

Then it hit me. Here I was spending the day with Jesus, and I was lost on a trip down memory lane. What was I thinking? I was about to apologize to him like I do sometimes when my mind starts wandering while I'm praying, but he spoke before I could.

“We worked right through lunch. I don't know what I was thinking! I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you. I better get you back before your supper company gets here.”

As we walked back down the hill, I said, “Josh, I have so many unanswered questions.”

“I know,” he replied. “But you've just got to be patient. Answers take time. Wisdom takes endurance.”

After that, he put his hand on my shoulder, and we walked in silence.

Bart, having never received any words of encouragement myself, I'm not sure how they're supposed to sound. But here goes: I believe in you.

Lisa Simpson

I
was getting dressed when I noticed it: A two-tone, blue metallic '57 Chevy Bel Air was parking alongside the cottage. As I watched, I realized that Florence Kowalski was inside.

I couldn't believe my eyes. “Florence!” I shouted from the open window. “Is that really you?”

She waved, and I ran down the stairs and out the door to greet her.

Florence stood outside the passenger side door with her arms open, ready to greet me.

“Just look at you,” she said, hugging me as though it were perfectly normal for dead friends to come calling in the late afternoon. “Aren't you the handsome one? You look so much like your mother. Of course, you always did. I can't believe it . . . little Schuyler Hunt all grown up, and a doctor too. She's so proud of you.”

Florence looked like I had always remembered: wispy thin with platinum blonde hair, wearing a black-and-white polka-dot blouse, red pedal pushers, and a pair of sassy red high-heeled shoes.

———

When someone we love dies, a part of us dies too, but a part of them also lives on in us.

She was my mother's oldest and closest friend, and when she died, a part of Mom died too. But a part of her also lived on in Mom's memory and heart. They'd known each other since grade school, and Florence's husband, Ray, grew up near Dad on College Avenue. In fact, they were the ones who set my parents up on a blind date. Dad was tall, cocky, athletic, and handsome, and Mom was beautiful but quiet. Dad always said he married up. But their families differed, and their romance almost ended before it started.

Grandpa Jacobs was the vice president of Jansma's Dairy, which meant that they lived well, and when it came to religion, he was old school. He and Grandma went to church twice on Sunday, and they also were regulars in Sunday school and the Wednesday night prayer meeting. They were Scofield Bible teetotalers who were loving but stern. The only time I ever got a licking with a belt was over Grandpa's knee. I learned real quickly that you didn't sass Grandma in front of Grandpa.

What we believe ought to be visible in the way we live our lives.

Grandpa's world was very black and white. You either played on the side of good or on the side of evil, and there was no middle ground. “We're living in the last days,” he'd say, and he believed it. He fully expected that without so much as a moment's notice, Gabriel would blow his trumpet, the clouds would part, and the final Judge would come and separate the sheep from the goats, which meant that we all needed to be ready.

As far as Grandpa was concerned, that meant that what you believed ought to be visible in the way you lived your life. Ten cents of every dollar he made went back in the collection bag on Sunday, and if someone knocked on their back door looking for a handout, they got one. “You never know when you might be entertaining angels,” Grandma would say. I
never saw any angels, but there was often an unexpected guest at their dinner table.

Grandpa and Grandma lived only a few blocks from the freight yard, and during the Great Depression a lot of people rode the rails. Each of them was in as bad a shape as the last, and eventually the word spread around the hobo campfire that if you were hungry, Mrs. Jacobs would always share their supper with you. But be warned, because she'd also share her mind and her gospel along with her goulash.

In fact, Grandma was such an easy mark that the hobos took a piece of coal and put an X on the curb in front of their house. Sometimes the rain would wash it off, and then when Grandpa would pull his big gray Hudson Terraplane in front of the house, he'd have to go downstairs into the coal bin to get a piece of charcoal so he could put that X back on the curb. “God has blessed me to be a blessing to others,” he'd say, and he meant it.

God has blessed us to be a blessing to others.

Grandpa Hunt, on the other hand, was an unemployed wallpaper hanger who had a taste for whiskey and White Owl cigars. He smoked White Owls for so long that he began to look like one, with black round-rim glasses, a weathered red beak of a nose, and bushy, feathered eyebrows. He bought the cigars at the corner store, three for a nickel, and he made whiskey out of potatoes in a still in the basement. Later in life, he switched to Kessler's, but he made do with home brew during Prohibition.

His idea of being a regular at church was attending every Christmas and Easter (unless someone called and wanted to go rabbit hunting—then all bets were off). Just about every Sunday, Grandpa's knee would start to hurt something awful right after breakfast, and as much as he wanted to go to church, he'd send Grandma and the kids on without him. They didn't have a car, and it was too far for him to walk, what with his bad knee and all. The way he saw it, if God really wanted him in church, he'd
have made sure they had a car. Besides, the sermon was the same every Sunday. “All that preacher wants,” Grandpa would say, “is to meddle in your business and get into your wallet.”

Grandpa Hunt had a little chip on his shoulder about how his life turned out. He didn't think he got a fair shake. He felt that working for the WPA for side pork and a loaf of bread was beneath him. Every day he would have to walk downtown, stand in line, and then catch a wagon to whatever work site the government had for him that day.

Grandpa only had an eighth grade education, but he was a skilled craftsman who could work with wood, metal, and plaster. He also grew up around horses and had a way with them, but most days he'd end up working on a crew that was building roads out of paving bricks for the rich people. Every day Grandpa would tell the foreman that he was a skilled tradesman and that laying paving bricks was a waste of his talent and the government's money, but the foreman wouldn't listen.

Eventually Grandpa stopped talking with the foreman, and every time he'd get a mind to, he'd take a little nip of potato whiskey from the flask in his pocket and keep laying those pavers. The depression was hard on Grandpa, and he in turn made it hard on everyone else—everyone, that is, but me.

For some reason he liked me. He'd come by school and tell the teacher that I had a dentist or doctor appointment and then take me fishing. I'd row while he'd talk about people like Johnny Bosma and Jack Rietsma and how they'd get into it with the west-siders, and then they'd all go have a beer. You see, the Polish section of town was on the west side of the river that divided the city, and in those days there was bad blood between the Dutch Protestants and the Polish Catholics. Prejudice ran deep on both sides, and sometimes it was fueled by the clergy. Neither group wanted one of their flock to marry “one of them,” and it was the subject of many a sermon.

Both congregations were made up of poor, uneducated
immigrants who competed for the entry-level jobs in the local furniture factories, and jobs were scarce. To hear Grandpa tell it, the west-siders were a little lower in the pecking order than he was. So naturally, whenever one of them got a job ahead of him, he felt like they were taking food off of his table.

Every time it happened, Grandpa and his boys would go out at night stinking for a fight, and the west-siders were more than happy to give it to them. Like Grandma used to say, “Grandpa would splash on his bitterness like cologne, and anyone who got close to him could smell it.”

Once he said to me, “The trick to life is to take what you can get, and then figure out a way to keep it.” I smoked my first cigar in a boat with him, and I had my first taste of whiskey from his flask too. I choked on both, and when I said that it tasted like kerosene, he said he'd bring me a Nehi soda next time, which he did. Grandpa kept his eye on the time, and he'd drop me off back at school before my bus left at 3:15. He'd always warn me not to tell my mother about our outings, and of course I didn't.

I was always a little afraid of Grandpa, but at the same time, I liked him. One day when I was about ten, he was doing some painting at our house and I wanted to help. Grandpa was very particular and wasn't about to let me help, so he took an empty paint can and filled it with water, climbed up the ladder in the garage, and pressed the can against the ceiling. Then he took a broom handle and stuck it underneath the can and told me to hold it. Then he took the ladder and went inside.

I stood there holding that broom handle, pressing the can against the ceiling, until my arms were aching. Finally I yelled, “Grandpa, I can't hold this much longer. I need your help.”

“No, you don't,” he yelled back.

“Yes, I do,” I shouted.

“Listen, boy, I don't want to help you, and I don't want you to help me, have you got that?”

“But Grandpa,” I protested, “if you don't help me, this can of
water is going to come crashing down and I'm going to get all wet!”

“A smart boy would let go of that stick and run as fast as he could,” he said. “And then he'd go play someplace else.”

And as that can of water came crashing down, that's exactly what I did.

As a kid, I really liked going to Grandpa Hunt's after church on Sunday. There you could ride a bike, throw a football, pound a nail into something, or play cards with the grown-ups, and you never had to go to church again at night. Besides, as tough as Grandpa was, Grandma was as kind and as gentle a soul as ever walked the earth, and consequently, there was always a lot of laughing at their house, even on Sunday.

Life is a matter of learning how to take the best from the people you love and letting go of the rest.

As you can imagine, there was a clash of cultures when Mom and Dad first started dating. My mother thought the Hunts were a little wicked, and my dad thought the Jacobs family was wrapped a little too tight—but somehow, they took bits and pieces from both sides and built a life for themselves. Life is a matter of learning how to take the best from the people you love and letting go of the rest.

Ray was the best man at my parents' wedding, and Florence was the maid of honor. My folks returned the favor for them a few months later. They were as close as any two couples could be. Dad and Ray joined the Navy when World War II broke out two years later, and Mom and Florence got an apartment together. After the war, the four of them lived together in a tiny apartment until they got on their feet financially.

Both Dad and Ray served an apprenticeship as tool and die makers, and they later changed from building dies to designing them. As tool engineers, they made a good living, but growing up, I always thought the Kowalskis were a little above us.

Ray had a good job at a furniture company, and it showed in their lifestyle. They lived well. My dad, on the other hand, went into business for himself, and the early years were lean. One year, for example, I remember Florence and Ray's oldest boys, Ron and Tom, each got a brand-new three-speed bike with those skinny racing tires. I had to share an old, fat-wheeled girls' bike with my sister. Ron and Tom went to East High in the suburbs, while Sharon, Ben, and I went to Ottawa Hills in the inner city. They always had the latest style of clothes, and I always got their hand-me-downs with patches on the knees. Each year Ron, Tom, Sharon, and I would go downtown and get our picture taken with the department store Santa Claus. Year after year, I'd have on the coat that Ron or Tom wore in the picture the year before. Ben was five years younger than me, so all the hand-me-downs had made their way to the mission by the time he came along.

I guess I always felt a little inferior to the Kowalski boys, but if they felt superior to me, it never showed. They always let me tag along with them wherever they went, and if someone asked who the squirt was on the girls' bike, they'd say, “This is our friend, Sky,” and it would be all right. I looked up to them, but they didn't look down on me. Like their mother, they were always gracious. I guess that's why I didn't really mind when Ben tagged along with me. What goes around comes around, and what I got from Ron and Tom, I tried to give to Ben.

Ron and Tom were the coolest guys I knew. They played baseball and basketball, and in high school, Ron ran cross-country and Tom played football. For several years, Ron held the state record in the mile and the two-mile run, and Tom was an all-conference football player. Ron won a full-ride scholarship to Michigan, and the next year Tom went to Michigan State on a football scholarship. They were in the limelight, and I stood in their shadow.

Our families remained close throughout the years. When Ray died, his kids asked me to say a few words. Of course I agreed, but for some reason their minister felt threatened by that. When
he found out I wasn't from his particular denominational tribe, he prohibited me from participating. I tried to assure him that I didn't know anything about denominations, and I certainly wasn't going to talk about any of that, but it didn't matter. His mind was made up.