Jim dreamed of the ibis, pure white and graceful,
crossing the clear brown creek, flying directly over the Stringfellow
house. In its cry, Jim heard his name
and awoke.
"Preacher?” Jim spoke softly in the dark of the
room.
“I’m
here.”
“Where’s
everybody?”
“They’re
asleep. It’s a little after one.”
“I
see.”
“Do
you want anything?”
Jim
managed a weak smile. “That’s the
question, Preacher. I been thinkin’
about it. You know, I . . . I don’t want
nothin’ at all. Not even to live any
longer. Not to have somethin’ I never
had or I don’t already have. I’m
completely empty. Washed up. I want for nothin’, Preacher. No regrets. Oh, I could’ve been a lot better man in some
ways. A better father. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty. And maybe you were right. For yourself.”
“How’s
that?”
“How
you never considered this world your home.
All your life lookin’ for a way out.
And for what’s comin’ up next. I
made myself at home in this world. For
fifty-four years, I settled into it right comfortable. I know there’s more to it. But it never was my concern. The other parts of it.”
“You
lived well, Jim.”
“I
did what I did. I was who I was. I took what came as it came. I can’t imagine it bein’ any way other than
the way it was. The way it is now. Can you?”
“No.”
“It’s
still a mystery . . . after all these years.
Like it was when we’d sleep out on the dock and watch the moon rise
against the stars. Like when we’d skin a
cat or slit a deer’s throat to bleed him ‘fore we dressed him. Like how the mallards sit in our front yard,
same time every fall, sunnin’ themselves before they move on to Mexico. A mystery.
I ain’t learned a damn thing. And
that’s all right. It’s good. It’s good.”
“Good
and faithful servant. Your faith was
always bigger than mine. Still is. Never
hesitated; never questioned. You’ve been
right to live like that, Jim.”
“You
talk that way at my grave, Preacher. You
tell ‘em.”
Jim
was silent after that, drifting into a light sleep. His labored breathing, the hum of the box fan
and the distant night sounds. It struck
Amos eerily – maybe this was Jim’s last night on earth. Last night in the body. With the holy stars around and the dark woods
and the deep black creek. If Jim meant
nothing to God just as he was right then, that little speck of a body in the
great universe, if Jim’s life wasn’t good enough, right then, we are all orphans, thought Amos, without a Father, a purpose, a faith. And I am a great speckled bird surrounded by
enemies.
