iii

I SLEPT BETTER that night than I had in months. In fact, I didn’t wake up until sunlight coming through a tiny gap in the window curtains around midday made the room too bright for sleep.

When I finally stirred, I looked around the room to get my bearings. That’s when I saw Stewart sitting in a nearby chair. He had a legal pad in his lap and appeared to have been writing something. When he heard me, he looked up and smiled.

“So, you’ve finally regained consciousness.” Glancing at his watch, he said, “I’d offer you some breakfast, but it’s almost noon. How about a little coffee and then some lunch?”

I couldn’t remember when I had slept so long. I felt like I was coming out of a coma. I tried to answer, but my vocal cords were still asleep. Finally, I managed a semigrowl that he understood to mean “Yes, I would like some coffee.” Sensing I was having trouble speaking, Stewart made it easy by asking me questions that did not require me to answer out loud.

“Do you take sugar in your coffee?”

I nodded yes.

“Cream, too?”

Again, I nodded affirmatively.

He snapped his fingers. “You know, I forgot. I’ve only got that fake powdered cream. Dreadful stuff. Would you like some milk instead?”

One more nod.

As I watched him pour a cup, I noticed that he had dripped the coffee the old-fashioned way, by pouring boiling water slowly over the coffee grinds. It’s less convenient to do it that way, but the coffee comes out better. People from Louisiana take their favorite drink seriously, and I was no exception. The stronger, the better. When it’s right, they use whatever’s left over to tar the roads.

Stewart brought me a steaming cup. It was perfect. As I searched for clues about him, this one suggested that he had a Louisiana connection of some kind.

I felt my brain responding to the caffeine and knew it was time to initiate some sort of conversation. For one thing, I needed to know more about my new friend.

I pointed to the legal pad and asked Stewart, as casually as I could, what he was writing.

He looked over at the pad. “Oh, that. Well, that’s our program. Today is the start of a new life for you, Bobby. If you follow this program religiously,” he intoned, putting special emphasis on the spiritual adverb, “then I can virtually guarantee that you will be successful.”

I arched an eyebrow to show my skepticism. He smiled as if I had amused him.

“Don’t make the mistake of ignoring what I’m telling you,” he said as he got up to refill his own coffee cup. Talking through the open kitchen door, he continued, “You’ve been trying it your way for several years now, and it hasn’t really gotten you anywhere, has it?”

I was too embarrassed and irritated by the truth to answer.

He shifted in his chair. “The mistakes you’ve been making are not original, you know. What’s happened to you is the same thing that has happened to others who behaved the same way. But, if you change the way you think and act, you can change the results.”

Stewart spoke evenly but with utter conviction, and I could feel my resistance weakening as he continued to talk. I still had reservations, though, about allowing a virtual stranger to take over my life.

I leaned forward and looked at him plaintively. “How do I know you’re right? I mean, what you say makes sense, but before we turn my life upside down, how do I know that doing what you tell me will make everything okay?”

He smiled patiently and raised his hand slightly to acknowledge my reservations. “Well, let me assure you that I’m not a witch doctor. I won’t put a spell on you. And I don’t have a magic pill, either. Changing your life will take time. And it will take total effort and commitment on your part to do what I ask you to do. You’ll see; the program is quite simple to understand but very difficult to master.”

He showed me his legal pad. There were just two words written on the page: “Let go.”

I looked up at him in surprise. “That’s it? Just ‘let go’?”

He laughed. “I told you it was simple to understand.”

“Yeah, I know,” I broke in rudely, “and very difficult to master.”

He nodded and grew quiet. I realized it was his way of rebuking me for interrupting him. My father would do the same thing when I was a kid. The silence was much more effective than any lecture.

“What do you want me to ‘let go’ of?”

He sat quietly for a few moments before answering. It then dawned on me that we had just started my first lesson.

Finally, he spoke. “Fear.”

I wanted something a little more concrete. “Fear of what?”

He just smiled. “Of whatever is pulling you down.” He leaned forward. “Bobby, that’s something you’ll have to discover for yourself. I know the answer, but it won’t mean anything to hear it from me.”

I was tempted to dismiss our little dialogue as a silly mind game he was playing with me, but some instinct told me not to. For one thing, I had no place to go, both literally and figuratively. Besides, Stewart was about the only man alive who seemed to believe in me. Over the last couple of years, I had managed to alienate my brother, my best friend, and my wife. (I had even been dropped by the guru of positive thinking in golf, Bob Rotella, after one session because of my bad attitude.) Maybe it was finally time to stop rejecting help when it was offered.

Which brought me to a logical if not obvious question. I asked him, “Why are you doing this for me?”

He rubbed his chin. “A good question.” He put down his empty cup. “I came here to save you, Bobby. Lord knows, you’ve certainly given me a challenge.”

I thought he would say more, but he was finished.

“What do you mean, ‘save me’? Save me from what?” I probably sounded impudent, but it was really only frustration.

Stewart was unruffled by my questions. “From yourself,” he said quietly. “It’s what all of us need saving from.”

Although I now understand what he was saying, at the time I felt like we were talking in circles. “And you can help me do that?”

He nodded his head slowly. “I’ve helped others who needed it as badly as you. Some, in fact, worse. And I’ve done it for a long time. Anyone who accepts what I have to offer will find a better life.”

This was getting a little heavy for me, but I plowed on. “You say you’ve done this with others. Who else have you helped?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. It’s their story, not mine.”

I was becoming lightheaded from Stewart’s circular conversation. Still, I began to get the feeling that he was someone I couldn’t—or shouldn’t—easily dismiss.

I decided to lighten the mood by making a joke. “So I guess you’re my guardian angel, huh?”

He didn’t laugh but instead wrinkled his brow and raised his shoulders a bit. “You could say that,” he said seriously.

I shivered at his answer. That was about as serious as I was prepared to be on the first day after getting out of jail. I figured it was an opportune time to end our question-and-answer session, so I said brightly, “Well, for the time being, I’ll settle for a caddie who can resurrect my golf game.”

He sensed my unease, stood up, and said, “It’s all part of the program. Now, let’s makes few phone calls and see if we can retrieve your truck and your belongings.”