Land Run. Mark Graham
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“Yeah. I’ll mow and then shower,” he said.
Jules hugged him again, tighter, and then walked quickly back to the living room. She seemed to him a little stunned, and that satisfed him somewhat.
“Amy Lynn and I are going to have a little planning meeting at the picnic. We want to do something different this year for Founders Day.”
“Uh huh.”
It was the largest turnout of folks to the church picnic in its history. Everyone there commented to Jake about it. In fact, this replaced the usual conversation opener, “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” The deacons were busy at the grill, basting, cooking, and serving. Some people were eating in the gazebo, and others were grouped under one of several makeshift tent awnings. Not many had ever experienced a shade tree. Some folks probably never would. The park was overrun with children playing. The band had just started playing and was singing a Third Day song that Jake recognized. He thought back, as he listened, of the struggle he had getting the same new style of music approved.
The changes Jake was making in church were just enough that it was noticeable. The past five years produced some level of drama for him and Amy Lynn. Every few months, an unhappy long-time member would yell at him, threaten him, and then leave the church because of doctrine. But so often, what was being defined as doctrine was, in reality, just tradition. These conflicts didn’t bother Jake as much anymore now that he had a few years under him. He came to the conclusion that there would simply be politics in the church as long as there were people in it. But what amused him most was just how much he had learned about politics from the church. He never expected that when first coming out of seminary. The real conflict was not usually about power as it was in much of life outside the church. There was some of that, but mostly, he found it was simply about taste. One person liked some song over another or some non-essential belief over another. This hit home with him on one Sunday while looking out over the congregation. Some folks, a lot of folks, would find him distasteful, always would. He knew, in a weird way, that too was motivating for him and he would do and say what he knew to be right. It would always please some and irritate the rest. Jake loved his work.
A church deacon officiated the potato-sack race for the kids as many parents ran alongside and cheered. Jake was observing it for the first time, and he studied the children and their parents. He could see that some of the children wanted greatly to win. And the expressions of some of the parents were more than hopeful. It was inevitable that the results would show forth some winners and some losers. But the prizes would all be the same, every child rewarded the same for their efforts, rewarded the same for having run the race according to their abilities. There’s something simple and true about that, Jake thought. His mind flooded with scripture, the story of the workers in the field all getting the same pay from their master. The world would call that unfair. And it was. But the wisdom of it surpassed the world. This potato-sack race was beautiful. The world, he thought, is mean and temporary anyhow.
“Jake, I want you to meet Jules Johnson’s husband,” Amy Lynn said softly as she grabbed at Jake’s arm. “His name is Cort,” she added as they walked. “Please remember.”
As they walked, Jake noticed Ted Levin’s red Miata pulling out of the park’s gravel entrance and onto the main blacktop road, leaving his family behind. Jake’s oldest daughter was talking with one of Ted’s girls. His other kids were having a great time with the races, and Ted’s wife was chatting it up real good. In a way, Jake thought, Ted left them three months earlier when he met that woman, Meg something, at his Ward Four election rally. She was a waitress at Spurs Restaurant and lived in an apartment building off Mustang Road. It was the only apartment complex in town, and even it was located on the personal property of its owner. Jake hated that he knew so much about people. So many people liked to confess other people’s sins to him. And he had no doubt that Ted knew his business was known to some, but the waitress probably did so much for his ego he couldn’t care less. She was exactly half his age, and her family was two states away. Knowing Ted, Jake figured it rarely if ever occurred to the man that the life he was making was miserable and self-defeating. But other folks in town knew and thought it best to leave Ted be. That is, Jake could tell, most folks didn’t figure he was worth saving. Maybe the folks at church just liked being in the know. To so many, Ted was just a picture on a two-by-two-foot sign staked crooked in the ground at every other stop sign, every other election year.
The next morning, Jake sat with Elijah on the nursing home porch to wait for Cort. Jake knew that Cort had heard that Elijah was a member of Jules’s church, and he got the idea to have her pastor introduce him to the old man. Jake offered to take him over to the Weeping Willows Retirement Home, but Cort insisted they meet there instead. Jake took it that Cort didn’t like the idea of spending any extra time with the preacher. He hoped that Cort found him nice enough or maybe at least not phony. But he settled on the idea that it just wasn’t one of Cort’s favorite things to do.
Jake introduced the men and moved over to give Cort room on the bench next to Elijah’s rocker.
“Elijah, Cort tells me he knows a man who is interested in buying some of your land.”
Jake noticed Elijah’s face turn serious, almost grave.
“He wants the whole farm. But ain’t for sale, ev’body knows that.”
“Obviously, I didn’t know that,” Jake replied.
“Pastor, ‘cept you. You ain’t sposed to know some things.” Elijah smiled back.
Jake could see Cort was getting nervous. He could tell that Cort was not used to being on the outside of any group, and the two of them were connecting on some level Cort could probably feel but not discern. There was a fraternal feel to Jake’s relationship with Elijah. He thought it probably centered on their faith and something intangible that Cort could not really get his arms around. He hated that, that unavoidable way he made others feel at times.
“Hey, it’s okay if you want to keep the farm. But I needed to let you know that the developers are going to triple the price offered in the other letters they sent out to you,” Cort replied. Then he tried to transfer the heat of his statement. “Wow. Look at that sunrise. I usually don’t get up this early.”
“‘Preciate that, partner. Just not sellin’. I prayed ’bout it but just ain’t a go. It’s really not my land. Nothin’ I can do with it right now.”
Jake was feeling uncomfortable suddenly and pretended to listen while he prayed.
“Well, Mr. Elijah, I don’t reckon I can outbid the Almighty,” Cort said.
“You a banker, right?”
“Yes.” Cort looked down at his watch.
“That’s good work. My granddaddy never went to school. But he was a house slave. The girl there, though, she’d come home and go over her stuff at ’em. The readin’ didn’t take, but the math did. Couldn’t beat ‘im outta a penny. He could walk out two boxcars full and tell ya straight what he was gonna git. Cotton was twenty-one and a half cents then.”
“Interesting.”
“You know, one time a man told my nephew to go get him an education so people won’t be lookin’ down on him. Then he told him to go to workin’ for awhile.”
“Sounds СКАЧАТЬ