JACKSON
These walls close in on me after church ends, when the Benediction is delivered, hands are shaken, hugs and parting words spoken. As the congregation slowly filters outside, I gather myself alone in an office once occupied by my grandfather, Andrew Morrison, and for a very brief time, my father, Thomas Potter. The books and shelves, framed pictures and degrees, I find it suffocating. Its history and expectation alone could be crushing. The unyielding guilt inside of my heart at my inability to stop it. I never wanted this office, this title Pastor.
I know the weight of it. I saw how it aged my father in the short time he stood behind the pulpit where I now plant my feet Sunday after Sunday.
Mom knew how to carefully navigate the city, its invisible rules, and somehow keep her dignity. I remember going with her once to the Chicago Theatre. The ticket taker was smiling, handing each ticket to each white patron, but flung it at Mom when it was our turn. She promptly turned around and left the tickets. She took us for ice cream instead.
Mom and Dad witnessed Chicago at it’s very worst, boiling with hate. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated. Our hopes for self-sustaining pride or peaceful resolution bled out on the wood floors of the Audubon Ballroom and the concrete balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Civil rights leaders, a president and his brother were bloodied and murdered before television screens. America was on fire.
I asked Dad once, it happened to be the week before he died, why he did any of it. Why serve when it doesn’t make a difference, to congregants who’ll constantly let you down, who don’t see the burdens you bear on their behalf day in and day out? And, my dad, deep thought creasing his skin of burnt umber, answered, “God does it all the time for us, son. And I guess it’s about courage, too. The courage to love despite loss of any kind. If you can’t see anything good in yourself or the world right now, see that part. See courage. That will guide you like it guides me.”
Knocking on the door interrupts my thoughts. Alice King rushes past the threshold, a manila folder clutched in her hands. She normally waits for permission to enter. She normally waits for permission to do most everything.
“Pastor, I know I’m disturbing you and I greatly apologize, but it’s important. It’s Lebanon.”
“Yes?”
“You know, I’ve been doing the accounting for the church. Making sure everything is correct, orderly, honest.”
“You do a wonderful job, Alice. Couldn’t ask—”
“No. No I don’t.”
Alice sits down across from me, wringing her hands. “I’ve stolen, from the church, for Lebanon...so he could keep up payments for the bakery, to pay it off. The mortgage payment is due on Thursday.”
The folder now meekly lies on my desk, thick with papers, ones and zeroes, facts and figures, ripe with the possibility of sending Lebanon, and Alice, to jail for God knows how long. Is she intentionally wanting to ruin her life? Does she want me to escort her to the police station? The church would never forgive me for not taking action. If I’d manage to keep it quiet, Lebanon still would know I’d helped Alice and he’d take the opportunity to make me pay for doing so. Even from a jail, he could do damage. He could talk, get others gossiping. He could still turn the church against me. Just an accusation, true or not, has devastating consequences. A small crack in trust becomes a gigantic fissure, decimating a once rock-solid foundation.
“What are you asking me to do?”
“I was hoping you’d have an idea,” she says, her eyes wide in anticipation; she’s waiting for an answer to it all, a way to leave Lebanon for good, to give Ruby and herself some hope. Freedom. She wants me to come to her aid by taking action against Lebanon. She’s waiting for an answer to her freedom.
“You should go home. On Sunday, I’ll announce to the church board you’re stepping down from the treasurer position, for personal reasons. Maybe I can use my savings or something to cover the missing money.” Walking over to the desk, I take the folder and place it in the top drawer. My hands are shaking. “I’ll figure some way to put the money back. Don’t worry. I won’t tell Lebanon you came here with this.”
She bows her head low, takes deep breaths. “You weren’t gonna help me. Part of me knew that, but I hoped, I prayed I was wrong.”
“He’s my friend, Alice. What good would locking him up do?”
“He’s no more a friend to you now than he ever was a husband to me or a father to Ruby.”
“So, this is worth you going to jail, too? Because that’s what would happen. You wouldn’t last a day there, Alice. You’re not strong enough to—”
“Twenty years with Lebanon King. I’m stronger than you’ll ever know, Jackson. If those files put me in jail, so be it. But he’d be put away too, and at least Ruby would be safe!”
She seems to be talking to herself more than having a conversation with me. “I tried. I prayed for him. Did what God asked, what my vows demanded. I loved him. Some broken part of me still does, but he can’t be saved. You made me believe once he could be, but he can’t.”
Walking quickly back to the door, Alice opens it and adds, “You choosing him this last time over me and Ruby, maybe you can’t be saved either.” The suddenness of her departure is punctuated by the dull thump of the door closing behind her.
If you can’t see anything good in yourself... See courage.
I wait for a few minutes making sure Alice has left the church. Then I turn off the lights and head home.