Paul Brown stood looking at his bathroom mirror, shaving cream on his face with his hands leaning on the sink. He shrugged remembering his younger self staring back at him. He had hair, darker hair, his eyes seemed a brighter blue instead of what looked more gray than blue now. His cheeks were thinner and his chin tighter. He looked down and noticed his small round belly that was once leaner. He looked back into the mirror and he sighed. He turned the water on, rinsed is razor and started itdown the left side of his face across the jawbone and down the front of his neck. He rinsed the razor beneath the still running water and returned the razor beside the first track and repeated the second one. He repeated the process until he was staring at himself in his present state. He placed the razor back in the cup that rested on the side of the sink. He bent down, placed his cupped hands beneath the spout then splashed water across his brow, down his cheeks and across his neck. He stood, pulled a towel from the rack on the side wall and used it to dry his face. From the same cup that held the razor he pulled a comb and ran it through his sparse hair that was above his ears and around the back. He smiled as he said to himself, ‘Oh well, at least it doesn’t take me long to comb it anymore.”
Paul left the bathroom behind and returned to his bedroom where he had carefully laid out his outfit for the day, black socks, black pants, and black cleric tunic. He sat on the bed and dressed deliberately, starting with the socks, followed by the shirt, the pants, his shoes and finally he reached for his white cleric collar. He stared at it and paused. He wondered what he was all about or what was his place in the world, his purpose. He remembered starting his religious path and being assigned to the Methodist Church in Candlelight, He was excited and determined to do great things, to bring people closer to God, to tell people about Jesus and the happiness he had found knowing that he was saved. He knew what his place was in the world. What he learned as he was reassigned by Missouri Annual Conference of the Methodist Church to the same church year after year after year, was that people do not change much no matter what they are told. It was like the professor of a communication course he attended in college had said; “People have their values set by the time they are ten years old and it takes a major motivational event, a “M. M. E.” the professor called it, and pronounced it as “me”, to change a value.” Paul found that he could not provide people with a “M. M. E.” to change a single value much less their lives. People are what people are, he had become to believe. He shrugged, placed the collar around his neck, buttoned it and carefully tucked it inside the collar of his tunic.
Paul left his bedroom and walked down the hall to the kitchen glancing nonchalantly at the photographs he had hung in the hallway. They were pictures of his brother and sister, his nieces, and his nephew. The nephew and one niece were his brother’s and the other niece was his sister’s. At the very end of the hallway, just before it opened up to allow entry to his kitchen, Paul paused at three photographs that hung below a cross forming a diamond. The cross was at the top, his mother on its left, his father on the right, and the family portrait below the rest. He brought his hand up to touch his Mom’s face, Martha, and smiled. She always encouraged him to follow his heart and his father, Ethan, had encouraged his soul. He focused his eyes on the family portrait where they sat around the living room couch. Martha and Ethan in the middle, Paul sat beside them, his older brother, Ian, and his wife, Beth, stood behind him. His niece, eight-year-old, Samantha, was standing beside him smiling radiantly at the photographer. Paul’s baby sister, Sharon, stood next to Ian and on the other side of her was her husband, Mark. Finally standing stoically, was his six-year-old niece, Amanda. All of them, except Samantha, had those fake smiles we all perform when having a portrait captured in a photograph. Paul loved them all and prayed a small prayer for them. He hoped to see them at Christmas. Since they all lived in St. Louis, sometimes snow prevented the family reunion from happening. They loved him, too. He knew that and he really could use the encouragement they brought with them when they visited him. He felt he needed it right now.
Paul entered the kitchen and sat at the table where he had placed his Bible and notes the night before with the thought of reviewing his lesson before he ate his breakfast. Instead he stared at it, doing nothing. Every Friday, he prepared a Bible Study that he provided to a group of patients at Mary’s Memory Care and Retirement Center. It stood by itself about half mile up a lonely road on the outskirts of town near the county farms. It is a quiet place with rooms for sixteen people most of which had dementia or other memory issues. Every Friday, Paul plans and provides a study to eight, ten or twelve individuals who forgot words almost as quickly as he spoke them. He sat back in his chair and wondered if this is his purpose in life. It couldn’t be, he thought, it just couldn’t be.
The first light of morning began to shine through the kitchen window, so he closed the Bible and rose from his chair. Going to the refrigerator, he opened the door and pulled out the half gallon of milk from the top shelf and shut the door. From the lapboard above it, he pulled the box of chocolate Rice Krispies and placed it on the counter beside the fridge. He reached for the bowl resting in the dish rack that was beside the sink and used it to hold the cereal. Lifting the half gallon of milk he carefully poured some of it on to the cereal in the bowl. Before returning the carton to the refrigerator, he chugged a few deep swallows directly from it. He returned to the table, sat down, and finished his breakfast. He rose from his chair, cereal bowl in hand and returned to the sink. He turned on the hot water handle of the faucet and rinsed the bowl. He grabbed the dish soap that is placed beside the sink at arm’s length and squeezed some of it into the bowl. Bubbles of soap suddenly appeared in the bowl as he used his hands to wipe the inside of it and dumped the water down the drain. Taking the spoon, he cleaned it off and placed it and the bowl on the rack to dry. He turned off the faucet and using a dish rag from the bottom of the sink, wiped it, and then placed it across the faucet to dry. Paul paused as soon as he did that and thought to himself, routine, my life is nothing but routine. He sighed.
He returned to the table to pick up his Bible and notes for the study. With the items in hand, he walked out of the kitchen, through the front room, and paused at the front door. In the foyer, he placed the Bible with the notes being used as a bookmark on the table next to the coat closet. He opened its door and removed his black suit jacket. He closed the door and put on the jacket and looked at the mirror that hung on the back of his front door. He smiled, a small smile, tugged at the coat to straighten it and made sure his white collar was centered as it should be and smiled again. He was ready as he could be to start the day. He turned and picked up his Bible from the table, turned back and opened the front door. After shutting and locking the door, he walked down the sidewalk that linked his home to the driveway where his light blue American Rambler stood waiting.
“Good morning Paul!”
Paul nearly jumped out of his skin. He placed his hand on his car and turned toward the voice that called to him from across the street. It was his neighbor, Father Dooley, James, was still in his maroon robe and held his morning newspaper in his hand.
“You startled me James,” he said to his friend. “I wasn’t expecting you, or anyone for that matter, to be up and about yet.”
“I am sorry about that but that was pretty funny,” the priest remarked as he walked into the street. “Off to Mary’s even the day after Thanksgiving?”
“Yes, yes I am. You know some of them don’t know what day it is,” Paul walked to the driver side door and opened it.
“It is a good thing that you do, Paul. You know it is.”
“Do I, James?” Paul asked as he sat down in the car.
“Paul, are you okay?” James asked still standing in the street behind the car.
Paul looked at him before shutting the door and said, “I don’t know.”
He shut the door and placed the key into the ignition, his right foot on the brake, his left foot pushed down the clutch and he started the car. He put it into reverse, grinding gears a bit and releasing the clutch slowly backed out of the driveway. James stepped back and waved as the blue car lurched forward away from him and he wondered to himself what is going on with Paul.
Paul watched his friend in the rear-view mirror as James turned, and begin to walk toward his home. He continued to watch him as he came to the end if the street. He stopped there and looked at the Catholic church on his right and then to his left to the Methodist Church he served. It was so exciting to look at when he first came to Candlelight and now it is just a building. Just a building. He could not believe he just thought that way about a place where God was supposed to be at, a wonderful place to be. He turned his car left in front of it and headed away from it.
The sun was rising slowly in the sky to his left and up ahead Paul saw a woman standing in front of the gas station. He wondered what she was up to and as he began to draw closer, he began to hear her singing. She was singing a Christmas carol or was it a hymn, he wondered.
“God rest ye merry gentlemen, may nothing you dismay…”
Her voice was as beautiful as she was pretty, blond, and brave to be singing on the corner early in the morning. He slowed down as he passed her, looking through the passenger window at her. She gazed back at him, smiled, and waved to him. Yes, she waved to him and he knew he had to meet her as he drove past.
To be continued…
My First Stories 