When Mr. Scott asked me could he go with me to see Mr. Ballantine after lunch that day, I said yes. But I wondered if he was gon’ do like Mr. Ron done the first time he saw the man. I was thinkin prob’ly not, ’cause I’d started goin down to the nursing home purty regular to help keep Mr. Ballantine’s room from gettin so nasty.
When me and Mr. Scott got there that day, he was real nice to Mr. Ballantine. He told the man his name and talked a li’l bit ’bout this and that, the weather, and what have you. Then he said, “Mr. Ballantine, I’d like to bless you with a few necessities. Is there anything I can bring you . . . any-thing you need?”
Mr. Ballantine said what he always said, “Yeah. I could use some cigarettes and Ensure.”
So me and Mr. Scott took off for the drugstore. But when it come time to buy Mr. Ballantine his blessins, he wanted to get the Ensure, but not the cigarettes.
“I just don’t feel right about it, Denver,” he said. “It’s like I’m helping him kill himself.”
Well, that made me have to eyeball him. “You asked the man how you could bless him, and he told you he wanted two things—cigarettes and Ensure. Now you tryin to judge him instead of blessin him by blessin him with only half the things he asked for. You saw the man. Now tell me the truth: How much worse you think he gon’ be after smokin? Cigarettes is the only pleasure he got left.”
Mr. Scott said I had a point. He bought the Ensure and a carton of Mr. Ballantine’s favorite smokes, then headed on home while I delivered the blessins. You ain’t gon’ believe what happened next.
When I went back to Mr. Ballantine’s room, he asked me who paid for the cigarettes and I told him Mr. Scott.
“How am I going to pay him back?’” he asked me.
I said, “You don’t.”
“Why would that man buy me cigarettes when he doesn’t even know me?”
“’Cause he’s a Christian.”
“Well, I still don’t understand. And anyway, you know I hate Christians.”
I didn’t say nothin for a minute, just sat there in a ole orange plastic chair and watched Mr. Ballantine lyin there in his bed. Then I said to him, “I’m a Christian.”
I wish you coulda seen the look on his face. It didn’t take but a minute for him to start apologizin for cussin Christians all the time I’d knowed him. Then I guess it hit him that while I’d been takin care of him—it was about three years by then—he’d still been callin me names.
“Denver, I’m sorry for all those times I called you a nigger,” he said.
“That’s okay.”
Then I took a chance and told Mr. Ballantine that I’d been takin care of him all that time, ’cause I knowed God loved him. “God’s got a special place prepared for you if you just confess your sins and accept the love of Jesus.
” I ain’t gon’ kid you, he was skeptical. Same time, though, he said he didn’t think I’d lie to him. “But even if you aren’t lying,” he said, “I’ve lived too long and sinned too much for God to forgive me.”
He laid there in that bed and lit up one a’ Mr. Scott’s cigarettes, starin up at the ceilin, smokin and thinkin. I just kept quiet. Then all of a sudden he piped up again. “On the other hand, I’m too damn old for much more sinning. Maybe that’ll count for something!”
Well, Mr. Ballantine stopped callin me “nigger” that day. And wadn’t too long after that I wheeled him through the doors at McKinney Bible Church—the same place Mr. Ron and Miss Debbie used to go to church at. We sat together on the back row, and it was the first time Mr. Ballantine had ever set foot inside a church. He was eighty-five years old.
After the service let out, he looked at me and smiled.
“Real nice,” he said.