The Impressionist (6 page)

“Now what color you have?”

“Black.”

“That’s right,” he said grinning large and wide. “Black is all the colors of the rainbow put together.”

“That’s pretty neat, Jim Ed,” I said. We’d only been talking for a short while and somehow this stranger had already touched me in an overwhelming way. “Christina showed me that one day. Taught me how to receive love and respect myself for who I was, to see myself as God sees me. I had to get new eyes, Adam, like you. When we begin to see ourselves the way God sees us, something miraculous begins to happen. We start seeing others the way God sees them and loving them the way God loves us. When that happens, people start seeing us differently. ”

I nodded, indicating I was following him.

“You want Paige to see you differently? Then start seeing yourself as God sees you and seeing her how God sees her. It’s an unending circle.”

“Sounds too simple,” I said, giving him my skeptical look. I wanted desperately to believe what he was saying, but because I’d been so beat down with the Bible and religion all my life, I was a bit leery. I’d heard the “God loves me” spiel, but deep down I’d also felt He was angry at me and most certainly didn’t like me, especially given the fact that I’d failed Him so much. On top of that, I could be a real jerk, like Paige had so poignantly pointed out.

“Is simple,” said Jim Ed. He could see that I was struggling. “So simple, people miss it. But it’s not simplistic. There is a difference you know. Many profound things are simple, can be understood by a child but still baffle a scholar. Man’s pride gets in the way. Want things to be complicated, but you’re right. It is simple.”

He got quiet, shifted his gaze from me back to the portrait. I could see the faint gleam of sweat on his shiny forehead as he worked. The crisp morning was turning into a quite warm day. My stomach growled and I closed my eyes.

“And sing,” Jim Ed suddenly spoke making my eyes pop right back open. “My Christina could sing like an angel. Her favorite song was ‘Amazing Grace.’ I can hear her singing it right now in front of the church, the whole congregation swaying like a wheat field in the wind. ‘Amazzzzing grace, how sweet the sound…that saved a
wretch
like meeeee!’ She’d be singing and then stop right in the middle and start preaching. She’d say, ‘If you took the word
wretch
out of this song, it’d change the whole meaning.’ Think about that, Adam.”

I didn’t respond with words, just let my head drop and clasped my hands together in my lap thinking about what he’d just said.

“Her daddy was the preacher at Mount Zion Church, but Christina, she wasn’t just a churchgoer, that girl knew God. There’s a big difference. A lot of church folk out there. Few people have a direct line to the Throne like her. She used to tell me that I was priceless because God created me and loved me so much that He died for me, took every bit of my sin on that Cross. He paid the price completely. She’d say, ‘Why you so mad Jim Ed? God’s not mad at you. All His anger was taken out on Jesus. Thank God for the blood! Now you receive His gift! Don’t be trying to atone for your sins. You can’t do it. It’s already done! He was the propitiation.’ She loved that word, propitiation. ‘But you gotta believe it, that He’s offering it to you, that if you were the only person alive, God would have still sent Jesus to the Cross to pay the price for you. When you hate yourself for being black, it’s like saying God makes junk and my God don’t make junk! Don’t be calling God a liar!’ Jim Ed paused, took a breath. “It’s simple but not easy, you know.”

“What’s not that easy?” I asked.

“Accepting God’s gift,” he replied. “I mean really believing it and receiving it. We either think we are too good and don’t need it, or too bad and don’t deserve it. Especially when we see ourselves like we really are. Truth is; we’re all wretches. We all fall short of God’s glory and are in need of redemption.”

“I’m hearing you,” I said. “But whatever happened to Christina?”

“I married her almost sixty years ago.”

“That’s what I figured,” I said, shifting in my seat to get comfortable. “Sixty years, wow, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

“It sure is, especially in today’s world. We live in a society today that is set against marriage and the enemy is out to destroy it. The two are working hand in hand.”

“Okay, so how’d you two meet? You can’t stop now.”

“Well, it’s quite a story. I’ll tell you what. How ’bout we trade stories—you meeting Paige for my meeting Christina?”

I paused for a moment considering his request. “No thanks,” I finally said. “I’d rather just listen to yours right now if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind at all,” said Jim Ed. At that moment, he turned to his paper and began rubbing furiously at a spot with a rag before he daubed first one color then the other. “Your face changed completely when you were thinking about Paige,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, again, not even looking up from his fingers.

“Really?”

“Yep,” he said. “It softened.” Jim Ed laid down the brush and studied his progress with a satisfied expression, then continued his own story.

“It was in nineteen hundred fifty-four,” Jim Ed said looking up to the sky in another effort to recall the past. “And—” His Blackberry dinged again and he paused to pick it up. “Here, it’s for you,” he said. “Looks like it’s from Paige again.”

I took the phone in my hand and silently read her text. “What friend? Words mean nothing to me anymore, Adam. I’ve lost trust.” I stared down at the phone and reread it, her words ripping my guts out. I didn’t even respond.

“You look like you just bit into a rotten apple and found yourself a worm,” said Jim Ed.

“Oh, I found a worm all right—me,” I said. As I uttered those words, a wave of self-loathing pounded me. “I totally blew it with her this morning. We had an argument and I cut her up pretty bad. It seems cutting people up is one of my gifts.”

Jim Ed nodded his head indicating he was listening while never stopping the flow of painting.

“Actually, we cut each other up,” I continued. “She’s pretty gifted too. Said she was sorry she married me…that she wants out.”

“Do you believe her?”

“Truthfully, Jim Ed, I don’t know what to believe.” I sighed deeply for about the tenth time that morning. “We’ve been drifting apart for a while now, but have been too busy to deal with it. We just go about our business, ignoring the elephant in the room. Now, suddenly, it’s like all hell is breaking loose and we’re being ripped apart at the seams. The situation with Josh isn’t helping matters either.”

“That tends to happen when we let things build up over time—don’t deal with issues when they are just small, like pebbles in a stream. You keep piling them up one by one and eventually the flow of water is cut off.”

“Paige and I used to be best friends, Jim Ed. I mean best friends. We did everything together. These days it’s more like we’re two irritated roommates, invading each other’s space, stepping on one another’s toes. She’s annoyed with me all the time, and she’s built these walls around herself, determined to keep me out. She checks out on me. Drives me crazy! It’s like I’m talking to a blank wall most of the time. She never listens to me or opens up anymore.”

“Why would she?” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Pardon me?” I asked, again startled by Jim Ed’s bluntness.

“Maybe her checking out is a way of protecting herself? I mean, why would she open up to you if everything you’ve been saying about yourself is true? How can she trust someone who’s cheated on her time and time again?”

“Now wait just a doggone minute! We may not have the happiest marriage right now, but I have never cheated on her! Never!”

“You sure about that?”

“Of course I’m sure! I think that’s something I’d remember. Look, I may not like myself, but I love my wife!”

“Did you know, Adam, there are adulteries of the heart? She trusted you emotionally, and you dishonored that trust. She gave you her heart and needed to feel significant, but instead felt betrayed. Your wife has put up walls and doesn’t open up to you anymore because you have crushed her spirit. After being wounded time and time again, she doesn’t feel safe around you any longer. Nobody in their right mind will continue to allow themselves to be hurt over and over again like that. It’s only natural that she would put up walls.”

“You talk like everything’s my fault,” I declared. “She’s got issues too! She can be vicious!”

“You ever saw a caged possum?” asked Jim Ed.

“What?”

“Have you ever seen a caged possum?”

“Only in the movies,” I replied with an edge.

“They’re sweet little things until they’re backed into a corner and feel threatened.” Jim Ed formed his fingers into a claw. “That’s when the fangs come out.”

“Well the fangs are definitely out!”

Jim Ed stopped painting yet again and that familiar sternness came upon him. “I’m absolutely aware that it’s not all your fault,” he said. “But right now we’re talking about you, aren’t we? What’s done is done. There’s no changing it. It’s in the past. If there’s any hope of healing your relationship, it’s got to start with you.”

The old man’s words were penetrating. This time I understood all too well what he was saying.

“If you want your wife to start opening up to you again, you have to start creating a safe place for her and begin valuing her. Give her your time and attention. You’ve got to prize her. You understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded.

“Outside of His own Son, that woman is God’s greatest gift to you,” he continued. “That is a fact. Your most valuable asset. You want her to feel like the safest place emotionally in the whole world is with you. You gotta make her feel it. To do that you have to start seeing her as God sees her— with priceless value—like God sees you. Over time, when her spirit senses that you truly cherish and value her, she’ll start to feel safe again. But it’s going take some time. You can’t fix in a weekend what took years to break. Then she’s got a free will of her own.”

“It may be too late,” I said feeling sick to my stomach.

“I know this is a ridiculous question to ask, but do you really love Paige?”

“Of course I do. That’s not an issue.”

“I mean love her enough to do whatever it takes?”

“Jim Ed, I’m terrified. I can’t imagine my life without her.”

“Then you are going to have to fight, but not like in the past. You have to change your tactics. Everything your flesh screams at you to do, you gotta do the opposite.”

“Huh?”

“You have to give up control,” said Jim Ed. “Stop trying to control her. Let her go. If you love her, you honor her wishes. Even if that means she walks away. She’s free. The more you try to control, the more it drives her away.”

I swallowed hard and my legs jiggled up and down nervously.

“After you change your eyes, your heart has to change— get the heart of a warrior. Paige needs to change the way she sees you too. She needs to see the warrior in you—the David in you. If she does, she’ll maybe begin to feel safe with you again.”

“I want to be that guy, Jim Ed,” I said.

“One of my favorite passages of Scripture is in First Samuel chapter 22. Let me read it to you.” He picked up the old, faded Bible again, skimmed through the pages, stopped, and started reading.
“David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them.”
Chew on that. David was a mighty warrior and he was a refuge for hurting people. They felt safe with him, and therefore they let him lead. When Paige feels safe with you, she’ll let you lead too.”

“Just like you,” I said. “You’ve created a safe place for me right here. Maybe you
were
sent.”

“Just exercising my gift.”

“How do you have so much insight?” I asked.

“Let’s just say I’ve been around the block a few times in my day.”

As Jim Ed was placing his Bible back on the cart, a black and white photograph slipped out from the pages and fell to the ground.

“Is that a picture of you and Christina?” I asked as he bent over to pick it up.

“Our wedding day,” he said handing it to me.

“Wow,” I said, slowly examining the photograph. “She was stunning.” Christina was in her wedding dress, her hair twisted above her head, soft and elegant with a much thinner Jim Ed standing tall and proud by her side in a black tuxedo, a grin bigger than the one on Eric’s face when he showed me his pix earlier that day in the store. “I’m sure she still is,” I added. “You look as handsome now as you did then. More distinguished now.”

“Thank you. Yes, she was beautiful.”

“Hey, that reminds me,” I said handing the old photo back to him. “You’re not off the hook. I still want to hear all about her.”

“All right,” he replied. “But remember, you asked for it.”

It was 1954 and Jim Ed was home on leave in Pine Grove, Mississippi. He and two of his Army buddies, Willie Taylor and Bo Harris, were all decked out in their uniforms strutting around downtown like they were really something. After downing a bottle of RC Cola in nearly one gulp, Jim Ed looked up—stunned at what he saw across the street.

“Hey man, you see what I see?” he said, wiping his mouth with his forearm.

“I sure do!” said Willie. Bo simply nodded in agreement; he was the quiet one.

“You ever seen anything so fine?” asked Jim Ed. “Where’ d she come from?”

“You got me,” said Willie. “Never sees her around here before.”

“How’ d we miss that?” Bo spoke up
.

“I don’t know,” said Jim Ed, “but I gotta meets her.”

“Now you know she be way too much woman for you, man,” laughed Willie while slapping Jim Ed on the back.

“You think so? You juss watch me and see.”

Without saying another word or checking for cars, Jim Ed shot across the street to make his debut. About the same time, an old rusty green and tan ’ Studebaker truck rounded the corner. It didn’t run into Jim Ed, Jim Ed ran into it! The crash knocked him backward onto the street with a hard thud. Thankfully he didn’t hit his head, as the truck was just creeping along. The
impact did more damage to his ego than his body. He wasn’t knocked unconscious, but was shaken up a bit. His uniform got torn from sliding along the asphalt, one elbow was scuffed and bleeding. Though it cost him a few bumps and bruises, all in all, Jim Ed figured it was worth the price. He couldn’t have planned a better meeting with Christina.