We took his rental car up to the county lockup west of Daytona. Bail was set at
$10,000 so with the help of a bondsman, we needed only $1,000 cash. Between
Jerry and I we raised it. At the jail we filled out the papers, paid the money
and then waited almost two hours in the lobby before they brought out
John-John.
Many years had passed since these close friends had seen each other. I expected
a little more passion between them. They hugged and said the right things but
it wasn’t at the level I expected. Lot of water under the bridge, I thought.
John-John sat in the back seat of the rental car, Beau driving. We were all
silent awhile then Beau looked in the mirror at John-John and asked, “how you doing back there, John?”
John-John answered, “not bad, considering where I just came from.” He added a laugh, and a trace of a smile hung on his face as he stared out the
window. I’d never seen much get him down. Always ready to be the life of the party -- that
was John-John. But he didn’t have much for us that morning and I thought it curious the two of them didn’t seem interested in doing more catching up. I remembered how John-John had
turned silent when Jerry and I were talking. He clearly saw himself as a junior
officer, although he never acted that way when it just him and me. Something
was wedged between these two.
As we entered town from the west, John-John finally spoke. “We having church tomorrow padre?”
I noticed he called it church. “I expect we are. I haven’t spoken with anyone about it since Wednesday. But I expect we are.”
“After what happened Friday morning I’m expecting a really big crowd.”
I knew he was talking about my TV appearance. “Did you see it?”
“Saw most of it,” he said. “That’s right when the police came and took me. I asked them to let me hang out a
second to see the rest but they said ‘fat chance.’”
“Imagine that,” Beau said with a laugh.
I laughed too. “Yea, imagine that,” John-John said. He wasn’t laughing.
Beau dropped me at the house and John-John got out too. He told Beau his place
wasn’t that far and he wanted to walk -- “get some air after being cooped up.”
We were on the inland side of the house and John-John started walking south on
Ocean Street. “Hey man,“ I yelled to him, “stay here and talk to me a minute. What did they tell you? Why were you
arrested? I mean, what’s new after all these weeks?”
“They said they’d been putting together evidence and found something new. They have a new theory
that I was driving.”
“But Mary was driving, right?”
“I represented myself OK at the arraignment but--”
“Mary was driving right?”
He hesitated a second and agreed, “Yea, she was driving.”
“Alright,” I said. “That’s our story and we stick to it. Right?”
“Right.”
“Before the weekend is over we’ll have you a good lawyer and we’ll demand a dismissal. Something’s not right here.”
John-John nodded and turned again for home. I called to him once more, asking
him to contact Sheila and Jerry to make sure everyone knows, “we are definitely on for tomorrow.” He said, “no problem.” I had never seen him wallow in self pity and I didn’t want it to start now.
For a third time he started home, and again I stopped him. “One more thing,” I said. “What’s the deal with you and Beau? I thought you guys were best friends and then you
meet after years apart and … well, I’ve never seen ‘cordial’ done with less warmth.”
John-John screwed up his face and this time walked back to me before speaking. “I don’t know, padre. Beau and I were always from different sides of the tracks. His
parents were big shots; my dad drove a truck. We were sports buddies, him and
me, we played basketball together and we were like the heart of the team. So
then after high school he goes off to college and gets all involved in the
anti-war stuff. You know, Vietnam, not this mess we got now. And he tries to
drag me into it, which he sorta does, mostly ’cause I look up to him like he’s better and smarter than me, which he was and still is. So anyway, he drops
outta school just to force the issue, and the draft board reclassifies him 1-A
like I already was. I get drafted and then he gets his notice and we get your
old man involved trying to get a C.O. -- you know conscientious objector, but
they turn us down and Beau comes up with this plan to run off to Canada.”
“I know a little about that. But why the falling out between you?”
“I don’t know man. We’re on our way to Canada. We get to Detroit, almost to the bridge and I start
thinking how the draft board dude said if they let me out they’d have to take some younger guy to fill their quota. That’s how it worked, oldest first. That didn’t feel right so I decide to do the right thing, come back and face the music. I
figure the army will let me show up late for induction and take me anyway. They
needed bodies.”
“But it didn’t work that way.”
“My own fault. I screwed around wanting to have a few more nights of freedom
before I reported.”
“And the police stumbled onto you for some other incident.”
“A scuffle outside a bar. I end up sent off to prison for trying to do the right
thing while Beau is sitting pretty up in Canada. After a while it started to
stick in my craw.”
This time when he started for home I let him go. “I’ll call you after I make those phone calls,” he said without looking back.
Carolyn met me just inside the door with a shopping list. She was wearing that
bandana she pulls over her hair like a helmet when she’s about to join the fray and tackle some hard core cleaning. I glanced around
for children. She sensed my intent and said she’d sent them all down to the beach. “We’re going to have a dinner party tonight. Everything is in pretty good order but
I just want to get the bathrooms and the kitchen in shape. I don’t need them coming behind me and messing up what I’ve just cleaned.”
“Makes sense,” I agreed, waiting to see if I was somehow up for criticism.
“All I need from you is to do the shopping-- you have the list, and don’t make any substitutions. If I listed a brand, that is what I want!”
I straightened my back and snapped off a salute. “Yes ma’am.”
“Well, I know you. There are times to economize but this isn’t one.”
“Whatever you say dear. How come I’m just hearing about this?”
“Your father called this morning to see if Mr. McCarthy had made it in and I told
him you two had gone up to fetch Mr. Johnson. He mentioned wanting to get
together with them and that’s when I got the idea. So I invited him and your mother to come over. Then I
thought, you know, we haven’t entertained in a while … so I made a guest list.”
“And …?”
“Well, there’s the five of us of course, and your parents, my mom, Mr. McCarthy, Sagan’s mom, Jerry from the Deck -- what is Jerry’s last name? I’ve never known -- oh never mind that now, and Mr. John-John, who I need you to
go over and invite in person; the rest of them I reached by phone. I want you
to visit John-John before you go get the groceries …”
I ducked out the door with her following me.
“Did you hear me,” she said. “Go by Mr. Johnson’s before you go to the store; there’s perishables on that list and I don’t want them sitting out in the hot car while the two of you lounge around
chatting.”
John-John had just reached his duplex when I caught up with him. He came back
down his walk and stuck his head in my passenger-side window. I passed on
Carolyn’s invitation and he said sure he’d come but then asked who else would be there? When I got to Beau’s name, he said “uh huh.”
I asked him not to make too much of what was now ancient history. “You said yourself that he could maybe be helpful to us.”
“No problem padre,” he said. “Seeing him, with me just coming out of the lockup, that brought it all back. I’ll get over it.”
“Besides,” I said. “I believe he thought he was doing the right thing too -- going to Canada I mean.”
John-John spotted my shopping list on the seat and asked to see it. He looked
it up and down, nodding his head. “Hang on a minute,” he said, “while I go in, change my clothes and make those phone calls real quick like. I’m goin’ with you. Your first dinner party at the new place, and right on the ocean -- I
can’t let you serve shrimp from the supermarket. They call ’em fresh but they ain’t fresh, not if they been frozen and thawed out.”
“Let me guess,” I said with a wide grin, “you know a guy …”
“You got it padre.”
Dinner was scheduled for 7 and I was in the kitchen helping Carolyn prepare the
fresh vegetables and fruits we would serve. “Everything fresh,” she kept repeating as we shared a few glasses of cabernet sauvignon. John-John
arrived an hour early carrying a plastic 5-gallon bucket half-filled with
oysters. “Right out of our own river,” he said. “Just harvested this morning.”
He explained that he was soaking them so when he threw them on the grill they
would steam and pop open. By the way, he said, he was going to handle the grill
so I could concentrate on my guests. No, he didn’t want any wine -- or beer. He was staying off it until he got this manslaughter
business straightened out.
The weather was perfect for mid-September. An afternoon high of 85 giving way
to evening temperatures in the upper 70s, cooled again by a nice breeze off the
Atlantic. We ate inside with the sliding doors open to the sound of waves breaking on
shore and the aroma of salt air. Barbequed shrimp and chicken from the grill,
steamed oysters and corn on the cob. Carolyn had worked wonders. Her artwork
included a big leafy salad with a dozen ingredients, most of which beyond the
romaine, tomatoes and spinach I couldn’t identify even though I’d helped cut them up. The theme was tropical and light, with fruits like papaya,
mango and kiwi adding a dash of sweetness and color. And we drank wine. I drank
more than I had since the night Mary died. We laughed and told old stories. I’d forgotten what a precious, stem-winding storyteller my mother is -- especially
with childhood tales. More than once I had to grin and bear it. But then it was
Carolyn’s turn as Mrs. Chisholm, on this night a mother and not a businesswoman, offered
embarrassing stories of her daughter as a little girl.
Whatever it may take to fathom the spiritual realm Jesus calls heaven, on this
night I was convinced that our common senses are all we need to find our way
there. The sights, the tastes, the touches, the aromas, and the sounds:
silverware on plates, food being served, glasses being filled, and the constant
surf. And laughter. Irrepressible laughter. Old friends reunited, Sagan and
Scott still riding the crest of being football heroes -- or players anyway, and
everyone wanting to applaud my performance on Krissy Collins’ show.
“Hard to put in words.” Carolyn said, “It felt very special; so different from what they usually do on the talk shows.”
“… So different from the way we usually talk about God,” my father added, “that’s what was really so different. It seemed like a moment of change for you, for
religion, for television, and, crazy as this might sound, for the country. Way
beyond charismatic. You could be carrying the very thing we’ve been waiting for.“
“You da man!” Jerry cried out, his glass held high.
