William Krueger - Ordinary Grace

Engdahl was many things. Crude. Ignorant. Callous. Self-absorbed and at the moment embarrassed and angry. But he was also nineteen and one element of his being topped all others and with it the blonde had him hooked. I felt his fists soften and then release their grip on my T-shirt. He shot out a deep final breath like a horse clearing its nostrils and he stepped back. The girl stepped away too and stood in such an enticing pose that Morris Engdahl couldn’t take his eyes off her.

That was my opening. I charged him again and shoved him brutally. He stumbled back and once more toppled from the rock into the water below. I stood at the edge looking down as he sputtered and splashed and this time was able on his own to grasp the safety of the rock and begin to pull himself out.

I yelled, “Run!” and turned and fled from the quarry with the others at my heels. We raced as if the Devil himself was in pursuit. We pounded the worn path to the fence, squeezed through the breach, leaped onto our bikes, and shot down the ruts toward the main road to town.

“He’ll catch us!” Danny shouted as he pedaled for his life. “He’ll run us down!”

Which was probably true. In his Deuce Coupe Engdahl would be on us within minutes.

“Follow me!” I yelled and veered out of the ruts and bounced through the tall wild grass of the field that lay between the quarry and the road. I made desperately for one of the piles of spoil rock that had been dumped in the empty acreage and I shot behind it and threw my bike down so that it was hidden in the grass. After me came Danny and Lee and Jake all of whom did as I’d done and together we hunkered behind the jumble of stone blocks with our hearts kicking at our sternums. In a minute we heard the roar of the Ford engine from behind the line of birch trees. The Deuce Coupe shot past with Engdahl at the wheel and the blonde at his side. The black hot rod with fire painted along its length hit the pavement, squealed left toward town, and disappeared with Engdahl in pursuit of four boys he would not find that day.

We looked at each other and allowed ourselves at last to breathe and then we began to laugh and fell onto our backs in the grass and howled in relief and triumph. We’d bested Morris Engdahl who was many things. Tough. Mean. Vengeful. And, most important to us that summer afternoon, blessedly stupid.

That evening my mother and Ariel left the house in the Packard to attend the final rehearsal of the chorale that Ariel had composed and that was intended to be the highlight of the Independence Day celebration in Luther Park. Dad had played tennis that afternoon with one of his fellow clergy in town, a Catholic priest named Father Peter Driscoll. My father called him Pete. The rest of us called him Father Peter. Dad had invited him to dinner after their match and because my mother and Ariel were not home he’d bought broasted chicken and French fries and coleslaw at the Wagon Wheel Drive-In and all the males of the household along with Father Peter dined informally at the kitchen table.

I liked Father Peter. He was young and told a lot of jokes and was good looking. With his red hair he reminded me of a picture I’d seen of President Kennedy on the cover of Life . He’d gone to Notre Dame where he’d played shortstop for the university baseball team and he talked knowledgeably about the game and was excited about the Twins. At the end of the meal, Jake and I were put to work doing the dishes while Dad and Father Peter still dressed in their tennis whites went out to the front porch where they both packed pipes and sat and smoked.

When we finished the dishes, Jake said, “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Nothing I guess.”

Jake went upstairs to work on a model airplane he was building. I figured maybe I’d talk to Gus about Danny’s uncle and maybe about Morris Engdahl while I was at it. There was something else I wanted to talk to somebody about, something that since the episode at the quarry had been bothering me, but I wasn’t sure Gus was the guy. It didn’t matter because I looked out the front window and saw that his motorcycle wasn’t in the church parking lot. Through the screen I could hear Dad and Father Peter talking. The priest was saying, “I’m just telling you what I’ve heard, Nathan. New Bremen’s a small town. People talk.”

“Your Catholic congregation talks about the wife of the Methodist minister?” My father sounded slightly amused.

“My parishioners talk about everything and everyone, Nathan. Some of them grew up with Ruth and frankly they were surprised when they learned she’d married a preacher. She was, I understand, pretty fierce and wild in her youth.”

“Still is, Pete. But when she married me I wasn’t a minister. She married a cocky law student who thought he was going to set the courtroom on fire and make millions in the process. The war, well, that changed things. She didn’t sign on for the job she has now. But she does it to the best of her ability.”

“She drinks, Nathan.”

“In the privacy of her own home.”

“She smokes cigarettes.”

“Every woman in every movie I’ve ever seen has smoked cigarettes. A good many of the women in my own congregation smoke in private. Ruth simply chooses not to hide it.”

“Worst of all, they say she shuns the activities of the WSCS.”

The WSCS, the Women’s Society of Christian Service, was an important organization in the church, and the women of my father’s congregations took great pride in their work on its behalf.

“She puts all her energy into the music programs for three churches,” my father said. “That’s where her heart is.”

“You don’t have to convince me, Nathan. I like Ruth and I love her spirit and I think what she’s achieved musically for this community and for the churches you serve is nothing short of miraculous. But I’m not a member of your congregation and I’m not the one bending your district superintendent’s ear.”

There was quiet on the porch. Then I heard a train horn blare a warning and for a full minute after that a loud freight rumbled through on the tracks a block away and when it had passed my father said, “She won’t change. I wouldn’t ask her to.”

“I’m not advising that you should. I just thought you might want to know what folks are saying.”

“I know what they say, Pete.”

“Ah, Nathan, it’s so much easier to be married to the Church.”

“But the Church won’t scratch your back when it itches or snuggle up to you on a cold night.”

Both men laughed and Father Peter said, “Time to go. Thanks for dinner.”

Later that evening I told my father I was going to the Heights but I didn’t tell him why. He looked up from his reading and said, “Be home before dark.”

I left the house and walked up Tyler Street and a minute later I heard the slap of sneakers on the pavement behind me and Jake ran to my side.

“Where you going?” he said a little out of breath.

“Uptown,” I said. “Looking for Gus.”

“Can I come?”

“I don’t care.”

Jake fell in step beside me. He said, “Are you going to tell Gus about Morris Engdahl?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve been thinking, Frank. Maybe you should tell him you’re sorry.”

“Engdahl? Fat chance.”

“If he catches you he might hurt you or something.” Jake was quiet for a moment then he said, “Or me.”

“You don’t have to worry,” I said. “I’m the one who pushed him in the water.”

We crossed the tracks and Jake picked up a rock and threw it at the crossing sign and it hit with a crack like a small gunshot. “I hate it when he calls me Howdy Doody,” he said.

We were both silent after that, thinking our own thoughts. I was thinking that although I’d shrugged off Jake’s concern for his safety it was not an unreasonable fear. Morris Engdahl struck me as exactly the kind of guy who if he had a grudge against you would gladly beat up your brother. We turned off Tyler onto Main Street and headed toward the shops of town. It was a few minutes before eight o’clock and the sun was caught in the branches of the trees and the light across the lawns was yellow-orange and broken. From down the streets that we crossed came the occasional rattle of firecrackers and the pop of bottle rockets but otherwise the evening was calm and quiet. I wasn’t thinking only about Morris Engdahl but also about his accusation and that of his girlfriend, that Ariel was a skag. I didn’t like the word. I didn’t like the sound of it or the feel as it had leaped off my own tongue that afternoon or the place in my head that it had unlocked. As nearly as I could figure, skag referred to a girl who had sex with guys, maybe especially creepy guys like Morris Engdahl. Tying that particular activity to Ariel in that particular way wrenched my gut.