Chapter 6The Cast Changes

It was a Friday evening. I had to drive to café and all on 39 my car was hand full as gusty south wind was blowing ahead of cold front. I got the café after dark and decided to keep my hours till twelve. Ahead far off on the western horizon were big menacing black ghosts illumined white by spewing out lightening against the setting sun. It was a slow night so Clint and I just watched them approach. A car boasting a sorority decal on the windshield and along with a burnt orange long horn and 3 other burnt orange and white stickers with various University of Texas slogans pulled up.

I walked in and got near the stereo Clint and bought. I recognized one of the girls right off. Clint took their order 4 double cappuccinos. It was Donna Goode the wounded Eagle from New Braunfels. I was hit by a wave of emotional turbulence. NBHS had left some deep scars within me and 1 of them had just been rubbed raw a wave of regret and pain washed over me as I quickly saw pain behind her eyes as she tried to fit in DAMN! And yes some excitement I wanted a normal boring night but another side wanted to do some something and my emotions quickly decided the course of action. It was personal.

I put a song from Pink Floyd's Division Bell called "Poles Apart". The second I put it in whatever motivation whether it compassion, vengeance, pride or whatever became irrelevant I had just committed to a course of conflict as David Gilmour's voice filled the café with the line, "Did you know it was going to go so wrong for you?" I felt the stare that I had felt 5 months previous at the New Braunfels High graduation. Clint busied himself making the cappuccinos. He had no earthly idea what was to happen. Donna all 4ft 9 of her marched towards me with an expression of anger, fear and pain on her face. She asked me"What the hell gives you the damn right?" I replied quite bluntly, "I don't have one. I didn't when I meddled with Susan and when I had the sword to put an end to all the misery caused by the perversion and subversion of everything we were taught to believe in I didn't. I saw cancer had infected the Unicorn and was killing it causing pain and misery I had the damn sword to finally end it I could not. Though the carnage the cancer caused beckoned me to do so." She then asked,"Why are you playing that song? I replied,"On the corpses and wrecked lives of New Braunfels lives were saved in Denton. I kept the faith you the very one who all us rebels put our faith in failed. You slammed the door in my face." She then said dryly as she walked out the door,"There is no faith to be had your help came 6 months too late." I looked into a set of eyeballs they were the exact same set I had stared into when the café 1st opened that person had committed suicide. We were over looking a 20foot drop to a solid limestone shelf. I angrily replied disgusted at her,"You want to have a pity party lets have one right now. I discovered my grandpa dead when I was 4,wah wah wah. My mom was too busy with career and my dad too busy with his to give more then the passing rat's ass about me giving the quality time versus quantity time excuse telling me to shut up when I told them they were wrong. My mom was as affectionate as damn freezer she to this day would rather die then admit that she was wrong. Hell my dad still can't get over the fact that when I needed him most he walked out of my life. He can't face the fact to trust him to keep his word is pissing into the wind and that I refuse to put my emotions in a relationship that is guarantied to have more pain then joy more disappointment then security. I was always the boy genius who was too much of a damn geek to be accepted by others further more I was learning disabled as well and my being a damn big wig made sure I was treated different. Listen Donna I know about Doug I know about Erin I know about all the damn casualties that damn, windowless bunker called New Braunfels High School caused including you. They hurt like hell at times. I know about your dyslexia. I know about your parents' fuck-ups I know about your brother who died in your back yard. If you want to complain you have a right to but I have every bit the right you have if not more of one. Because as I speak I have a friend rotting in her grave who was raped and murdered the bastard that killed her was sentenced to death the ultimate insult to her name and I have another person who committed suicide a year after Erin died." She then said,"Well how the hell you live how the hell do you have hope?" I stared at her and shook my head in disgust and confusion; "You did not learn a thing in Young Life did you? You want to know right and wrong I'll tell you right and wrong. Wrong is Laura ripping into you because of your grades. Wrong is how your dad manipulated everything to his financial end. Wrong our lives have been a testimony to what wrong is and what wrong does. I know there is a right. I know there is hope. First of May 1991 about 3 miles from here I walked up this valley feeling weary to my soul. I held in my hands the last bit of idealism I thought. I was walking up this valley looking for a reason to live. April of this very year I was catching my breath during interval work. That tiny bit of hope that tiny bit of idealism I had given to God in this very Valley had been returned to me as promised much greater then I could have imagined. This last year I acted like some 16-year-old building a car. This last year I had hope I had a dream and looking back I'll be damned if some of it did not come true. I almost built the perfect beast it was God who called and directed me to do it. No,God is real he sent his son to die for us. He cares yes in my stupidity I charged way too much on emotional credit card burning myself out like you have done but I know he is there. I know he is alive and my stupidity and my sin does not change that one bit." She started crying. She asked me,"How can you say that there is hope." I then said"Logically we are either the butt of a cosmic joke or the Bible is right that is where logic takes you mans wisdom in the end leads nowhere what you do at that cliff is between you and God if he is out there. I know that he exists I know that he put me here for a reason you have to find that out for yourself." There was a pause followed by weak question, "How do I." I responded quite simply "Accept Christ as your savoir and start letting go." She nodded and hugged me. What had begun one evening in the late spring 5 miles downstream from the café had continued to roll on as Donna joined her friends and sped away up 83 heading north into hopefully to hang a right 27 and get away from the oncoming storms.

Clint looked at me and quoted " 'God's strength is perfected in our weakness' your emotions sometimes get the better of you but sometimes its alright for that happen." I asked Clint "What now?" Clint responded with a story: "Once their was a pain the butt camper gave me and almost everybody else that summer ulcers he was a mound of rage and pain doing his best to isolate himself we did everything we could I prayed everynight for two years. Three summers later he came back a Christian getting ready to receive a leadership course and having some demons to conquer he did both and I learned simply to trust. My time here amigo is fading I will know when I have to go trust it will be soon. You know who that camper was and that lesson taught in this Valley to me will be taught to you by a person other then yourself." I knew who that camper was as Clint looked deep into me. Clint and I hugged the hug of brothers older one teaching the younger one in imitation of the head of family. It started to rain as we both laid out our sleeping bags. Our lullaby that night was the sound of rain drops hitting the steel roof.