✔️ 'You Led Me Through This' - Chapter One

Chapter One 

 

Part I

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It is 8:57pm. The small Christian book and supply store I manage has been open for ten hours and fifty-seven minutes and - with three minutes left - my closing associate and I receive a product availability question that will most certainly erupt into some formidable despair for one of the parties involved. The window blinds are down. The overhead music that plays on a continuous loop of relatively encouraging music during the entire day has finally been silenced. Our Jesus Fish open sign is now unplugged and in its electrical outlet is a vacuum that would ordinarily be in use at this very moment had it not been for this unpredictable call. 

“Ma’am, I apologize….” (I learned a long time ago in retail that it is best not to say the words “I’m sorry” if you truly were not sorry and carried little in the way of sincerity in your voice.) “...it is just that we don’t carry that product here in my store.” Desperately looking to redirect the customer’s thinking, I sheepishly ask, “Have you tried online? Amazon has everything. Let me give you their website. It’s the word ‘Amazon’ and then add ‘.com’.”

I add this almost verbatim to my previous disclaimer as the customer on the other end of the phone is now revving up to explain herself for what will be the third time. She is very confusing, but I respect her persistence. She continually presents to me an incredibly woven picture of what it is she is in dire need of and is dead set on the idea that we carry it. Her relentless and non-essential anecdotal accounts of conversations she may or may not have had with past employees only confirms that the product she is looking for is not at my store because this same product does not exist. 

Mondays are always one of our busiest and therefore roughest days we experience at the store. This could be because our store is always closed on Sundays and we have lots of sinning to do on the weekends in Kansas City (or at least that is how I facetiously explain my high Monday sales to my district manager). We have a multitude of secretaries that always order Bible studies, calling hours before we open. We have different sets of secretaries that always return Bible studies. Our store frequently receives customers on their way to the airport looking for a book that most often has been out of publication for decades. Leaving empty handed, these traveling literary enthusiasts must now settle for random scrolling at the mercy of their cell phone batteries as they journey the globe doing whatever it is they have been called to do. We also have customers coming in throughout the day certain that a book I or one of my staff members can recommend to them will save their broken marriage, make their teenager repent, or explain what awaits them in life beyond this Earth.

It is quite the responsibility for what I am paying these employees. 

“Aren’t you even going to check? You know I shop there all the time...” continues the customer.

“Here it comes,” I think to myself. The words almost slipping past my tongue in the form of an audible whisper.

“…. Let me speak to the manager,” she demands.

8:59. 

I turn to Sandra who is standing next to me throughout this ordeal, her face locked in a whimsical grimace until she realizes what I am about to do next. 

“She wants to speak with my manager,” I whisper as I begin handing her the phone, removing my finger from covering the telephone receiver. 

“What does she want?,” Sandra asks, reluctantly reaching for the phone while at the same time straightening her posture and preparing herself to take on the responsibility of neutralizing the situation so we can close up shop. In all that she does, Sandra continues her meteoric rise to the ranks of upper management. She is an excellent employee and I wish I had a spot to offer her a promotion within my store. My old company would have seen her potential and transferred her to a store with “lots of opportunity” like they did me. Six years and two companies later I find myself making far less money now, but I also don’t feel like I am going to be stabbed in the parking lot of my current operation. Lose/Win I suppose.

“The customer wants to know if we carry holy water that also can be used as anointing oil,” I say.

“No. We don’t carry that. No one does.”

“...that is also used to drive out evil spirits.”

Sandra - now seeing the severity of the situation - stares at me in disbelief and asks, “Does it need to lift stains out of carpet and double as a fabric dye, too?” I chuckle as she regains her stoic customer service demeanor and goes on to help the customer: “Hello, my associate says you wanted to speak with me about a product. Unfortunately, we do not carry the item that you are looking for, but if you come into the store tomorrow morning when we open at 10:00am please ask to speak with Michael (Sandra now looking at me while fiendishly pointing and bobbing her head up and down to signify her victory) and he will be able to answer all of your needs pertaining to thwarting the spirit realm.”

The conversation comes to a close and although I am not excited about what possibilities the turn around shift holds for me tomorrow morning, it is indeed time to close and for this I am thankful. The money counted, the tills put back in the safe, and the vacuum finally put to its long awaited use, it is now time to leave. We are the last two cars to leave the shopping center. A crisp chill is upon the air as October is quickly coming to a close. Tomorrow night’s trick-or-treaters will most certainly have to accommodate jackets into their spooky attire. 

“9:19,” I say as Sandra and I exit the building and approach our vehicles, the alarm sounding behind us.

 “If it hadn’t been for your pal calling, it might have been 9:15.” 

She snarkily replies, “Yeah, so let me know how it goes in the morning. And if you can’t help her, go up to her and say, “I know some people you can call about the spirits. GHOSTBUSTERS!!!”

“Alright, alright. Good night,” I say, opening the door to my Jeep with one hand while dialing my wife with the other. 

“You too,” says Sandra.

I start the Jeep and let it run before taking off for home. I recently had the starter go out and want to make sure that with the sudden dip in temperature, the engine warms up sufficiently for a vehicle approaching twenty years old. 

As the phone rings, I begin decompressing. Retail Management allows for so few true and uninterrupted breaks that sometimes the drive to and from work is the only source of meditation one gets. It is difficult to try to make every person who walks in that front door happy. As much as I would like to think that we can, there are many times I feel we fall short because so much is out of our control. We must be unshaken in all that we do as managers for everyone is watching. Even though we are called not to judge, I feel Christians are the only army that wounds their own soldiers. For all the customers I helped and all the customers who were overwhelmingly appreciative of the service I provided to them today, it is still the negative scenarios that I felt like sharing with my wife first. This is something that I have brought to God many times in my prayers; many times over that I would find joy everyday in what I do and where He has placed me.  

“Hello,” answers my wife, Aleasha. “Are you leaving?”

“Yep. Do I need to get the pumpkins for Luke’s Halloween party tomorrow?”

“No, sweetie. I got them already. He is good to go. I just hope it doesn’t snow like they are saying. How was your night?”

“It was a crazy night, darling,” I begin. (This was the usual way I would forewarn my wife if she didn’t have ten minutes to hear the answer she better not have asked me “How was your night?”.)

“I don’t think I had the chance to sit down the whole time I was at the store. UPS brought three pallets of Christmas. I cannot open the door to get into my office, but I have all of the Black Friday merchandise somehow piled in the stockroom.”

“Oh yeah? What else?”

“‘The  Dumper’ is back,” I said. 

My store gets by on having a dumpster pick up our trash once a week. For the last four years we have never had a single issue with the dumpster not being adequate to meet our disposal needs. However, lately we have some guy in a silver pick up truck, not unlike my dad’s, who just pulls up beside the dumpster when he thinks no one is around and tosses in the most random assortment of trash that looks as if it cannot possibly come from the same home. One time, we saw him pulling away and there was a dismantled futon in our dumpster and what looked like 500 feet of worn and weathered garden hose. Another time we saw him drive away and it was hundreds of VHS tapes. I don’t mind a dumpster being used for an occasional drop off. I say this because my dad is notorious for finding unguarded dumpsters and doing the exact thing. However, there have been times recently where my employees have not been able to throw away our own trash.  Once my assistant manager, Aaron, went to throw out trash and there were branches and logs completely filling the dumpster. We had to keep the trash in the store because ‘The Dumper’ threw away an entire conifer. 

Aleasha continues, “Aww. Well, I hope you catch him. Is he worse than your dad?”

I chuckle to myself and just as I begin to answer her question, my phone signals there is another call on the line. 

It is 9:23.

I look down at my phone to see that my niece is calling me.

“Hey, why would Scarlett be calling me at 9:23 the night before Halloween?” I ask.  My first assumption is she needs a toy sword or cosplay piece from my collection of 90s memorabilia for a last minute costume accessory. These keepsakes and collectables I keep hidden from the frequent and ever-looming judgmental eyes of the world mainly sit either in boxes or on shelves just waiting for the right time to legitimize their purchase. 

“Aleasha, let me go so I can see what she needs,” I say with my finger already on the red call end button. 

“Okee dokee,” Aleashal says, “See ya when you get home. The boys missed you all night. Luke is super excited about his Halloween party tomorrow. All his stuff is laid out.” 

“Awesome. Love ya.”

As I ended the call I switched my tone of voice from the downtrodden husband airing his grievances on the great retail battlefield to that of the fun-loving Uncle Mike.

“Hey Scarlett, what’s going on?” I say as I flip on the turn signal to take my exit home, the Jeep slowing down to make the turn.

“Mike. It’s Scarlett's father. Listen, it’s your mom. You need to stay calm, take a deep breath, and get to the hospital. Mike, your dad found your mom unconscious on the bathroom floor. Your sister gave your mom CPR until the paramedics arrived. Judy was unresponsive. You need to call your brothers. Stay calm, but get here as fast as you can. We are following the ambulance with your sister and dad. She didn’t look good, Mike, she didn’t look good.”

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Part II

 

“Mike! Come quick! You gotta see this!”

My younger brother, Matthew, was calling me to come outside to the backyard. I was on the floor of the living room where I was playing with the brand new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Shooter vehicle our dad had just bought us at the Lake Geneva Wal-Mart.  I say “us”, but I made it quite clear to my younger brother that my investment in this toy was much deeper than his considering I had the painstaking task of applying the entire sticker sheet to the vehicle by myself. He only had to scrounge around to find two meager AA batteries. (-I was positive he didn’t look for batteries at all. Not even in the junk drawer which had more batteries than a Radio Shack checkout. My suspicion was that he took the batteries out of the television remote control like he always does everytime the need arises, but his rapid procuring of a power supply was highly necessary for my immediate entertainment and for destruction of the evil foot clan; therefore, his means would not be questioned further.-) 

It was customary that whenever we came up to the Wisconsin house on weekends we would stop into Wal-Mart right off the interstate so that we did not have to go back into town. The weekend escape from our life in Chicago was primarily for my parents to relax. Being in Kindergarten, I really didn’t have any stress that needed to be escaped from other than tripping on the playground at recess or contracting cooties, but the bimonthly trip north meant a new toy and time away in the countryside to play.

“What is it, Matt?”

“Just come out here to the backyard, before it gets away.”

“Fine. Be right there.”

We were not as limited in our outdoor play on the acre we had here as opposed to our tiny backyard in Chicago that could be mowed with just a few passes of the push mower. Here, we spent most of our time outside. Within moments of our arrival on Friday afternoons we would all stretch our legs by heading outside to pick up fallen sticks and throw them on the fire pit just in time for dad to get the riding lawn mower gassed up and out of the shed. Dad would cut on the riding lawn mower in a pattern that to this day I find baffling as he weaved in and out of trees and bushes, sometimes even having to duck so as not to be clotheslined off the riding mower in an effort to never reduce speed. I think the hour he spent mowing was one of the only times he found in life to be alone with his thoughts and process the week he had as a police officer. For him, mowing was more than a chore or obligation; it was a call entrusted to him to preserve a small portion of this earth for his family. The only time he would interrupt this silence was to shout to get our attention to go pick up a branch we had missed in our gathering, thus impeding his mowing and jeopardizing the efficiency of the pattern. 

The other passion my dad had for the great outdoors was seeing parts of it destroyed by flame. Burning yard waste brought him just as much joy as mowing. My dad would burn any fallen branches in a giant stone-lined fire pit right in the middle of the yard. Even if a branch looked as if it had the potential to fall, its fate was sealed with an early demise by a losing battle with a saw blade. One time, he overdid it. A tree had fallen in a storm earlier in the week and my two brothers, dad, and I spent the better half of the weekend exhaustingly dragging branches to the firepit until the fallen limbs were over ten feet tall and twenty feet wide; the safety of the stone-lined perimeter of the burning pit no longer visible. Black smoke filled the sky above our home as we heard the incriminating sound of a fire engine driving towards the house. My younger brother and I ran inside that day not wanting to go to jail as accomplices to burning down the state of Wisconsin. My father, a true professional when it came to getting out of trouble that he started, went straight up to the firefighters as they rapidly approached. He reassured them with a smile that he too was a trained first responder and the situation was contained; them in full firefighter gear, him in loose fitting jogger shorts wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Chicago: Where The Weak Are Killed and Eaten.’

“Hurry! If it goes across the road we cannot go after it!” Matthew shouted. “Mom said we can’t go in the road, remember?”

I took a moment from gathering all the small plastic pizzas Donatello had been shooting at my older brother’s Skeletor figure riding atop a Tyrannosaurus Rex covered in battle armor to stop and see what Matthew needed. This was a good time to stop playing considering six of the ten firing pizza discs had missed their trajectory and were now in the “mysterious beyond” that lay beneath the couch. I would have to make sure that these were retrieved before we headed back to our home in Chicago come Sunday afternoon, lest they sit in wait until we returned to the country home next month. 

As I exited the back door of our ranch-style home, I made sure to shut the glass door behind me slowly and ensure it was latched upon closing so as not to let in any mosquitos. The door was heavy, made of two separate panels of glass. I located my brother in the front yard who was peering at the ground beneath him in a linebacker stance looking as if to pounce at any moment. His unblinking eyes were wide and his breathing controlled. He knew I had stepped outside by the slamming of the glass storm door; he had not taken his eyes off the incredible discovery that hopped slowly before him.

“Stay still. Stay still, Mr. Frog,” my brother said in a calm voice. “Mike, look at this bullfrog. We gotta catch him.”

To any residing member of the Lake Geneva, Wisconsin community this would have been an ordinary frog, but to my brother and I whose backyard at home in Chicago produced nothing but rollie pollies and sickly squirrels this was like stepping outside in the winter to get the mail and discovering a wooly mammoth frozen in ice. The successful celebration of nature by removing it from its environment fell upon on my shoulders.

“Matthew, don’t move. I’m going to go get Mom and Dad and ask them for a jar so we can take it home. Keep doing what you are doing.” 

As I slowly stepped away to find my parents, my brother, the frog whisperer, continued his task of keeping the bullfrog from any heightened gestures as its impending capture drew near. 

But where were my parents? I needed their help to gather the standard jar, aluminium foil (with holes), and optional rubber band. We would then add a stick and some leaves so that bullfrog would feel at home. If my parents were not setting the sky on fire, they must be inside. I stepped back inside the house and called their names. Our Wisconsin house was a one level ranch style home; its front and back door were connected by a straight hallway. I listened closely and heard laughter coming from the front yard. My dad had built a screened-in deck in the front yard where they spent much of their free time relaxing. (-My mother liked the screened in front porch because she could smoke outside and not be bitten up by - what she described - mosquitos that could be mistaken as hummingbirds.-) I had to hurry as I was already thinking of names for the frog and what shelf I would put it on when we got back home to our bedroom. 

I took off running towards their location at the opposite end of the house. I ran past my Pizza Shooter as I sprinted out of the living room and down the hallway past the bathroom, past our bedrooms and into the kitchen. Just like the backdoor, the front door to the house had a heavy glass storm door that opened with the press of a latch. As I continued sprinting through the kitchen towards the front yard where my parents sat peacefully on the deck I extended my right hand in an almost Heisman Trophy Award pose. I did this action to pop the latch and exit the house without having to slow down. As I neared the storm door hitting full speed, my feet became entangled in the knitted rug that we wiped our feet on upon entry into the kitchen. I missed the latch on the storm door by several inches causing first my right hand to burst through the top glass panel followed by the rest of my arm up to the elbow, then continuing with my arm all the way up to my shoulder. My head - barely pressed against the shards of glass that remained in the top panel of the door - turned downward to see my arm completely covered in blood. 

The crunch of the glass dripping red at my feet was the first sound I heard.

I knew I was in pain.

I knew I could not speak even if I tried.

I knew the bullfrog would be gone.

I didn’t know how to explain what just happened or why it just happened, but I didn’t have to. 

My mother was there immediately and without being told what to do or what she would need, she began. 

She began by helping me guide my arm safely out of the now shattered glass of the door, so as not to drag it back through what remained of the broken glass and thus further slice my arm. I first noticed the dark red blood on the glass and I thought about what had just happened from my parents’ perspective: Complete silence and then a poorly coordinated, overweight child does his best kamikaze pilot impression into a glass door. As my mom wrapped my arm in a towel to catch the blood and determine its source, I heard my father snapping into action as well. Amidst his stream of cursing and wild hand gestures he began formulating a plan of cleaning up the glass and getting the door sealed. 

My silence now turned to howls of agony and pain. I felt ashamed knowing I had caused so much damage for something so silly and ruining everyone’s time to relax. I wasn’t aware of the extent of the damage to my arm. I didn’t want to know and I felt as if I didn’t look at it the pain and the anger towards the situation would all go away. I tried to squeeze my damaged hand into a fist, but gave up on the test given that I couldn’t feel my fingers. 

Through the sobs and the deep breaths I tried to explain to my mom what had happened, but she just gently rubbed the back of my head and reassured me we could talk about it later and that I would be okay; her hands working quick to gather items out of her blue travel bag that accompanied us on so many adventures.  With four kids and the expectation that anything could happen at any time, my mother had a blue travel bag that could take care of any ailment or calamity. She grabbed the bag as I cried and she continued to comfort me by reaching into the freezer and grabbing some popsicles. 

“You are doing great, Mikey,” my mother said. “I want you to tell me all about your new toy.” She took my face, wet with tears, and raised it with her hand by my chin so that I would look her in the eyes for the first time. She didn’t say anything else in that moment. My mother just looked me in the eyes and knew there was hurt and sadness. Her eyes spoke softly and I felt a genuine loving response that my pain would pass and she would not leave my side until it did. That whatever I did would be fixed and forgiven. She wasn’t mad. She was concerned and alarmed that these events took place, but she wasn’t mad. What if my parents hadn’t been there? Would I still be hanging there on the door or would I have overreacted and slid my arm back through the pane of glass? I knew from watching Bill Nye the Science Guy that veins and arteries ran throughout the body and that some bled worse than others. What if I had cut into one of these and they found me on the tile? 

But she was there for me and I would be okay. I pushed the negative thoughts out of my head and murmured: “Okay.” It was the first audible word I said since trying to teleport through the door.

With my mother’s hand along my back, she guides me into my sister’s room away from everyone. It was the most mysterious room in the house and in all the years we visited that Wisconsin house this was the only memory I have of being in the room. It was my sister’s room and it remained locked much of the time. It was also where there was a second television with a vintage game system that I believe was an Atari. I don’t know for sure because I was not allowed to play the game system or be in my sister’s room for that matter because she didn’t want me to break it. Something about me being clumsy.

My mom sat down and removed the dish towels that had caught the blood, exposing my wound. I continued to look up towards the ceiling while chewing on what was now my second popsicle. My mom said, “Mikey, I need you to do your best to stay calm and take deep breaths. Don’t look at your hand.” 

As I looked down at my hand I began to cry again and asked, “Am I going to have to go the hospital?”

She took my left hand and placed another orange popsicle in it and said, “You concentrate on this and don’t look up. Just stay calm and don’t move. You have pieces of glass stuck in your hand and I have to pull them out with these tweezers. Now, weren’t you going to tell me about your new toy? The Pizza Flinger for your Samurai Turtles?” 

“It’s a Pizza Shooter for my Ninja Turtles,” I corrected my mother, not wanting her to sound ridiculous. I go on to tell her so many details she didn’t know about Ninja Turtles and my favorite characters. I told her how the Pizza Shooter motor worked and how cool I thought it was.

My brother Matthew walked in the house from the back door screaming irritatedly, “Dangit, Mike! He got away, Mike! He got away! Where did you -”. He locks eyes with me, sees the trail of blood leading to my sister’s room where my mom is operating on me, and silently walks away. 

I know she didn’t plan on spending the next ten minutes turning my hand into a game of ‘Operation’, but my mother was fast and thorough in making sure she found every piece of glass in my hand. She told me a story while she operated, of how when she was a young girl she had fallen off her bike on hard gravel and claimed she had a rock stuck under her skin where the scar was. She healed, but she swore that the rock would find a different place to move to when she slept.

“That’s not true, you’re lying,” I said, a hint of laughter in my voice. 

“I’m serious. Then one day when I was your sister’s age in high school I blew my nose and there it was right in the tissue.” 

We both had a good laugh as she began to bandage my hand, now completely removed of glass. She picked me up and carried me to the couch. 

“What do you say we watch a movie as a family and just take it easy?” my mother asked. 

In addition to my new toy, we had bought the movie ‘Pure Country’ on VHS that we planned on watching as a family that night. As the family gathered around the giant 32-inch television set, my mother ejected ‘The Mouse and the Motorcycle’ from the VCR and placed in the new movie. I sat on the couch - errantly shot pizza discs beneath me - I ate my fourth orange popsicle and was just so thankful my Mom was there and that she took care of me. 

“Dad, can you turn it up?” I requested.

“Are you kidding me?” my dad exclaimed. 

“What is it, Rick?”my mom asked as she brought me a glass of water.

“Un-friggin-believable. Why isn’t this remote working?”