Courage Grows Strong At the Wound by Robert C. Koehler

Author:Robert C. Koehler [Koehler, Robert C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781483459073
Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
Published: 2016-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

USED CAR LOT OF NEED

Ringgggg! …

“I came to say goodbye. I’m going back to Mississippi. I’ve got throat cancer. I’ve got to get all my teeth pulled. My son is dead. All I need is $20 …”

Actually, Larry is never that direct; it sometimes takes him 10 minutes, when I open the door and let him get started, to tell his story and ask for money. And I’m probably blurring our last two, maybe three, conversations. I’d heard about Deion several visits back. The teeth came later. The cancer … I forget.

All I know is that when my doorbell rings in the evening, or later — Larry’s latest visit was 2 a.m., but others have come to my door at hours even less godly — a chill seizes my heart. Almost certainly it’s going to be him, this bony, ugly man with the broken nose and the open soul, desperately broke again, greeting me like I’m his best friend and last hope, selling me the used car of his need. Again, again!

The world he brings with him is not the world I live in. It’s a witch’s brew of cold nights, endless violence, corrupt cops and expedient lies, linked by the earnest urgency of his narrative. “You hear about the kid who was shot at Howard and Ridge?” Larry will ask. “Last night.” His eyes search my face. “Shot off his bike, here” — and he points to the center of his forehead, never letting his eyes leave mine. “He’s dead. The Kings got him.”

This is my own neighborhood he brings me news of — a neighborhood I know as tree-lined and friendly, middle-class, safe … safe enough, anyway. My daughter walks around in it. I’ve lived here for 20 years. It’s my home. But Larry never tires of telling me how bad it’s getting — “The cops are selling guns, you know that, right?” — as though this is his end of the bargain, to warn the complacent, in the manner of Cassandra, the truth-teller.

And this is an interesting role for a man who lies so shamelessly. He lies with the conviction of a Boy Scout, hand over his heart, swearing by his God and mine, “This is it, this is the last time you’ll see me. All I need is money for the bus ticket. Please, Bob, please …”

For a while he was coming by with his 17-year-old son, who at first stood in silence as his father begged, eyes downcast, enduring the humiliation. But after a few visits Deion started looking at me, talked cheerfully about his new school. One day in the fall I gave Deion money for school supplies.

When, after a considerable absence, Larry rang my doorbell and told me the boy was dead, killed in a drive-by, I could only stare blankly, unsure whether to believe him. I listened in an emotional void. Even after I decided he was telling the truth, I was unable to let grief and sympathy flow — these were

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