Dreamers and Soul Makers

It was the world of dreamers and soul makers. Buddy Carson sat in the back pew on the hot July morning as one after another, people filed past, filling in the spaces in the building as sun filtered through rose and emerald and periwinkle glass, and motes of dust hung languidly in the air, creating beams that rested like halos on gray heads, white bonnets and greasy bald spots.

The room itself smelled like old leather, and like dust that has been pushed and swept from one side of a room to another, and back again, never discarded but left to choke in one's nostrils. Soon old sweat and cheap perfume mingled in with the dust and leather smells, and tiny droplets began to form on Buddy's forehead and under his arms. He'd never felt too secure in crowds, or around people in general, and he stared at the grains of wood on the back of the pew ahead of him as a few looked his way. Some shot him a brief smile, others glared reprovingly, sizing him up from head to toe. For those people, Buddy bit back the urge to stick out his tongue at them or, worse, flip them the bird.

He was from the other side of the tracks, some said. He had holes in his jeans and little grease splotches on the front of his shirt that the washing machine at the laundromat hadn't gotten out, and since it was the second day straight that he'd worn the shirt and had slept in it the night before, it settled on his slightly undernourished body in a rumpled heap. No one knew he'd spent the night under the bridge the night before, near the park where underneath the slide the words "Bill L/S Tammy 4ever" were scrawled in deep by a rock. The stones were smooth under the bridge, and the soft sound of water spilling over the rocks played like a lullaby in the humid July air, and Buddy could almost forget the beating his dad had given him earlier that evening.

But here he sat, on a Sunday morning, and the harshness of life was beginning to beat its way not just onto his chest, back and shoulders, but into his eyes, the way he hung his head, and the dead coldness he felt deep in his chest. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he often saw deep black pools staring back at him, icy depths that had no bottom, and he'd attempt a smile but it often twisted into a half crooked grimace. Rather than risk the people seeing those bottomless wells or that twisted grimace and have them throw him out immediately, Buddy kept his eyes down, pretending to study the piece of paper he'd been given called a bulletin, or bore ever more deeply into those woodgrains on the back of the pew.

He didn't think he believed it anymore. It wasn't possible. He was crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood at a mature ten years of age, and Buddy was smart enough to realize that you couldn't take what an adult said at face value, that they often lied to you, or told you they cared about you right before they smacked you across the head. He wondered if God was the same. Some said God was dead, others said we created him, others said they loved him, but then they loved the girl in his second grade class in ways that made her shake with fear and cry whenever they entered the room. No, he didn't believe in God.

But what made him miss him so much then? What made him hope against hope that he did exist, and that he wasn't like his dad? He didn't know if Jesus ever lived, but if he did, he wanted him to be someone special, and he wanted to go sit on his lap. Maybe he would understand.

But if he didn't? If he was like all the rest, what then? Where could he go? Who could he turn to? Was there anyone he could trust? He'd decided that if there wasn't, that by the time he was thirteen, he'd hang from the tree nearest the bridge, overlooking the riverbank, the rounded stones in the creekbed, and the gently flowing water that made soft lullaby sounds. He'd give it some time, he thought, these kinds of things needed to be thought through.

The music began from the front corner of the room, an old upright piano that, even to Buddy's untrained ear, was badly out of tune. It matched the sound of the singing perfectly. For twenty minutes on the hot July day, ladies waved fans before their faces, and men wiped their foreheads with handkerchiefs as they sang about bringing in sheep, or ships, or sieves, or something like that, and about glorious days, and called each other brother and sister. Buddy sat in the back, unnoticed and uncaring, drifting between sleep and nonsleep to the buzzing of the sound and the heat.

Then the music ended, and a man with gray hair and a sharp, hooklike nose stood behind a block of wood and spoke gently, softly at first, then with building passion. He talked about caring for each other and forgiving our brothers and sisters, and from the smooth, unlined forehead and ear-to-ear smile on his face, Buddy felt like the man had no idea what he was talking about. He moved closer to the end of the pew, preparing his escape, but his hands felt hot and something was burning his eyes and a tightness constricted the back of his throat. He was hurting, he was in pain, and without waiting another moment for his escape, Buddy ran out the back door and into the side yard, a sob breaking from his throat. He picked up a rock and threw it, as hard as he could, and heard it bounce off a tree and ricochet off the hood of a car. He didn't care. He needed to walk.