Читать книгу Safety Harbor - Chuck Cooper - Страница 10

Rocky rested his head for a moment against the garden hoe and wiped his brow with his shirtsleeve. With the direct July sun, it was a warm day to garden. He liked working with his hands. It gave him time to think. It was this easy kind of meandering flow of his mind that seeped like water into the cracks and crevices of creative possibilities that can’t be accomplished when he was thinking intentionally.

Life had seemed so simple until he reached his mid-thirties. Then, the crisis hit. From then on, the world seemed to grab him by the hair and drag him along on a ride through a life that he didn’t recognize and he surely hadn’t planned.

He had grown up in Colorado in a good stable home. He had not been coordinated enough for competitive sports, but he’d gone out for track and kept the respect of his peers by being a recognized athlete. He was not a scholar but a good student, pulling mostly B’s with a few A’s and a sprinkling of C’s, enough of the latter to keep him off the honor roll. His long light brown hair and blue eyes along with a good build, had made him popular.

They were Catholics in a largely Protestant town, but, in school, nobody mentioned that part of life, so mostly, it didn’t matter. Religion, everybody said, was a private thing, and didn’t have to do with the rest of life. It was in the same category as a car or a pickup truck preference, and maybe a category or two below that in the town where he lived!

Then one day, about three miles from his house, a school friend and all of his family had lost their lives in a car accident when two young men from a neighboring town with too much beer in them had swerved and met them head on.

None of the local churches could hold enough people for the funeral so they had services in the local school gymnasium. Four coffins lined the front of the stage. It was hard for Rocky to fathom how it could be that Tom and he had just been talking on the school bus last Friday and here, on Tuesday, his voice was silenced and he was about to be buried.

That week, Rocky went to Mass even though his parents didn’t. For the first time since he’d been an altar boy, he paid attention throughout the service. Suddenly, Mass became real rather than just some rote, form, or formula. Affected deeply, when he went out into the street again, he knew somehow life would be different.

He made an appointment to see Father Crucey, who was polite but who really wanted to talk about the high school football team. He predicted a “building year” since last year most of the good players had graduated.

Rocky was disappointed. Not until he went to college did he find young people who were asking the same questions he was. The second year of his college career, the campus chaplain had offered a vocations fair but nothing struck Rocky as anything that would fit him.

“It’s all right,” said Chaplain Bill Reedy. “Just keep asking those questions.”

No one, even Father Bill, seemed to understand that Rocky lived out of his heart. It was meaning and experience he was looking for and if they were missing, he couldn’t make up his mind about anything. After graduation, he still didn’t know what to do. He took a job with a small radio station as their program manager. His heart was calling him elsewhere. But, where would he go?

One of his college professors had once quoted the aphorism to him, “Go West, young man!” and he had never forgotten it. Nine months later, Rocky had saved up enough money to move to California.

Fifteen years later, with two divorces, a job loss, and financial ruin, Rocky fled the accumulated pain and landed back in his hometown. It was humiliating for him to stay with his parents, while all the good townsfolk who had praised him, now whispered about his marriage failures and his dissolute life in California.

Six months later, he made off to Oregon, where a distant cousin lived, and took a job at the State Hospital in Salem. One day, his eyes landed on a stunning brunette, a new employee with an incredible smile and laughing, dancing eyes. They were inseparable for months. Then, she went away. He tried to find her for weeks. Finally, she showed back up at work. It turned out she had a husband in Arizona and had gone back to try to reconcile. It hadn’t worked out. She had asked for her old job back, and got it.

Magdalena and he gradually renewed their relationship, but it took him a while to forgive her for leaving him without a word of explanation. He never understood and he never forgot. Had he not loved her, he couldn’t have gone on with her.

Now, things had finally changed it seemed. Rocky and Magdalena were a real pair. Rocky knew she overlooked so many of his imperfections and recognized them as wounds.

“My middle name is Grace,” Magdalena always said, “for a reason!”

Rocky always smiled when she said that. He smiled when she said most anything.

They had often taken trips to the Oregon Coast together and the Safety Harbor area had become their favorite place. They often found themselves just south of town in an old campground called Embers. It was down a little lane off the main road that led to a group of shacks under a virtual cascade of trees that provided shade except for a few intense rays of sunlight that pierced the limbs and the leaves.

They had been delighted to find that a glassblower worked there. They became friends with Daniel over the next two years. Trust built between them and, one day, Daniel invited them to come and be a part of the little vagabond community of misfits that was starting to form under the trees. He had allowed a couple of people to pitch tents there. He also had a vacant house that he could rent to Rocky and Magdalena.

“Rocky, I think we can do this!” said Magdalena. When she said those seven words, Rock knew that it was true. So, they moved.

After they had been there a few weeks, a few more tents started appearing and three lean-to huts were being constructed.

Rocky went to see Daniel.

“How many people are we going to allow?” he asked, calling over the noise of the bellows.

Only after it came out of his mouth did he realize that he had said, “we” instead of “you.” Daniel smiled. He noticed this too. He placed his most recent work in the lehr and came over to talk. His face always looked a bit gritty and carried a semi-permanent indentation from the facemask he had to use while working the furnace.

“I’ve been thinking, too, that this situation needs immediate attention. Word is spreading and people are coming here every day asking for shelter, just a place to be. I find it hard to turn away people, but I admit there’s going to be a problem from the county pretty soon.”

“Unless we have some reason for them to be here,” said Rocky.

“What are you thinking?” asked Daniel.

“What if you expanded your glass blowing work and offered people jobs? I could see that we could have a whole community of glass blowers and related shops here. I could quit my job at the lumber yard and Magdalena could quit working at the library and come out here and organize things.”

“That takes a good deal of money,” Daniel said. “I can’t take too many risks. I’m not twenty-one and flush with money, you know!”

“We have some savings,” Rocky offered.

“Have you talked to Magdalena about that?”

“Truth be told this was her idea,” he grinned. “All my good ideas come from her!”

“Since when have my good ideas become yours?”

Magdalena’s distinct voice came from behind him. She was home from work early. It always gave him a thrill and made him blush. She came up behind him and put her arms around his waist and kissed his ear.

“There will be hurdles. Your savings won’t last forever.”

“What if there are some facts-on-the-ground before we go to the powers-that-be?” Rocky asked.

“Oh, Rock, I think that would just irritate people.” Magdalena’s voice was firm. “And we are on the edge of being illegal.”

“We need to create a positive impression of this place,” said Daniel.

“We could ask Father to say Mass,” said Rocky.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“That would take away the stereotype that we are “just a bunch of hippies,” as the mayor of Safety Harbor has called us. If the Church blesses this project, it puts its critics in a difficult position. We could spread the word that there’s a free meal offered, invite people to Mass if they want, and then ask Joe’s to provide sandwiches. It would get people here. They wouldn’t have to do Mass. Just come and eat. It would give people an idea of who we are. A free meal always softens people’s hearts.”

“You mean, like public relations?”

“Yes, you might say so. Religion and hospitality. Really, they ought to be the same thing, no?”

“Well, it’s an original idea, I’ll tell you that. A lot of people around here aren’t religious, and some don’t like Catholics if they are religious. I am not sure how it will work or if it will work at all. But I don’t have a better idea.When approached, Father Callaghan surprised them and said of course he would.

“Do you worry that some are not Catholics that might participate in the Eucharist, Father?” Magdalena had asked.

He winked. “Not if you don’t. Of course, don’t go running to the Archdiocese, telling tales!”

The Saturday evening of the Mass, Father appeared with his traveling salvation show. As arranged, Joe’s Fine Dine-ing delivery truck followed Father’s car. Rocky, Magdalena, and Daniel were amazed at the crowd. People had come from everywhere, it seemed. There were far more than they were expecting. They sat on the ground. They brought chairs. Some brought blankets. The happy voices of children could be heard. A few dogs had come along for the ride.

The Mass took two and one half hours with the crowd that had gathered. Father chose Johnny Watson and Sally Hankins to assist in serving.

“They aren’t even Catholics, Father!” Rocky whispered in the priest’s ears.

“What is that to you if it’s okay with the good Lord?” asked Father.

“I would have been happy to help!” said the Rock.

“I have other work for you to do!” Rocky heard a voice say.

Father’s lips weren’t moving, so who said it? No one else was close at hand. Still, the voice didn’t seem to come from any one direction. It seemed inside. It seemed outside. It came from everywhere. It came from nowhere. It quieted him. He felt a strange kind of peace.

After the Mass, people were asked to sit down.

Picnic sandwiches and chips began to appear in front of people wrapped in paper that read “Joe’s Fine Dine-ing.” Joe’s staff was now passing out meals for everyone.

Father Callaghan’s voice called out over the din of voices, “Dear friends, let us bless this food before we eat!”

He repeated himself several times. Finally, Father had quieted the voices so that he could be heard. He raised a sandwich up to the sky. When it seemed that he could raise it no further he stretched and lifted it up a little higher. Then, he said the blessing.

From under the canopy of trees and wafting out over the valley as far as the crashing surf of the sea from all of the people present, there arose a surprising and resounding “Amen!”

It was at the “Amen!” that Rocky had his revelation, his epiphany. He remembered Magdalena remarking one morning, as one of the inhabitants of a tent had emerged in a long cape and cowl, that, whoever it was, looked just like a monk walking out there in the mystery of the early morning fog.

“This is a kind of monastery of the unsettled,” she said.

“There can’t be such a thing,” said Rocky. “That’s a contradiction in terms. Monks are by nature settled people.”

“Not all of them. Ask the next monk or sister you see how settled they really are!” She smiled wryly.

“You act as if you know something about that!” he remarked with a grin.

“I haven’t told you everything!” she said, with a sparkle in her eyes.

He had not seen it before, but he could see now, as he looked over the teeming mass of people assembled there on the grounds, how it is that we are all unsettled. It came to him in that moment that there is no permanent dwelling place, even if we have a so-called permanent address. We are all wanderers. He saw how it is that life moves on, with or without us. We meet the self of yesterday on the road of today and there is a qualitative difference. He saw how it could be that here, in this place, on these grounds, there could be a living space for those who had nowhere else to go, a place of work and prayer, adventure and meaning, as well as purpose and direction.

He looked over the crowd now and saw that there seemed to be no more sandwiches and chips and still there were at least a hundred souls to feed. He made his way to Joe.

“They don’t have enough to eat!” he said.

Joe just smiled and went back to the truck. He emerged with more large boxes marked “Monastery of the Unsettled.” From these boxes, he brought forth more than enough.

“You give these to those who are still waiting for something to eat,” he said to Rocky.

Rocky did just that. He walked over to the crowd, sat the rough-edged crowd down in groups, and passed out as many sandwiches and chips that were needed.

That night, as Rocky made his way back to Magdalena’s and his humble abode, it suddenly hit him that Joe had written the name they had just coined the community, on the boxes of sandwiches and chips.

He stood still in the darkness for a moment, stunned. How could Joe have known anything about a casual conversation Magdalena and he had about what someone was wearing when they emerged from their tent? Nonetheless, there it had been, right in front of his eyes.

Later, no one could say for sure that they had seen the Unsettlement written on the sandwich wrappers. But then, Rocky was the only one who had been close to the containers containing the sandwiches. He had given the boxes to Joe immediately after serving the people. Joe had put them back in the truck. Come to think of it, that night, he didn’t see anybody but Joe inside that truck. No one could have seen anyone but Joe bringing out those sandwiches and chips.

Back then, Rocky knew what he had to do. Now, eighteen months later, over a hundred and fifty souls lived at the Unsettlement.