To Be A Man

To Be A Man

By

E. V. Smith

           Nash pulled his ’53 Skylark into the driveway around eight in the morning, and for a wonder he was sober.

Well, mostly sober.

The drive from Nashville was a fever-dream, having taken forever in the blink of an eye. It was, he supposed, the way anyone might feel, the way the traffic getting out of town had been maddening, knowing that it didn’t matter if he simply pulled over and parked. It’s bad enough, he thought, getting a call like that at midnight, but worse still that it was that particular call. Not, “There’s been an accident, you need to come right away.” Not, “There’s been a terrible accident and you need to be here now!” No, his was, “Your grandpa’s dead. Get here when you can, but no rush, he’ll still be just as dead.”

Okay, she hadn’t put it quite that way, but it all came out the same, didn’t it?

Nash had been celebrating his contract with Warner, the culmination of years of hard work. His songwriting was solid, the band was tight and his song “Can’t Go Back” had reached number seven on Billboard’s Hot 100. For perhaps the first time in his life, Nash felt like things were swinging his way, the past truly behind him and blue skies ahead.

So of course Helen would call.

__________

Sitting in the driveway of his grandparents’ house, the car’s engine ticking as it cooled, Nash recalled the last time he’d been here, almost twenty years ago.

The humid June breeze had been redolent of magnolia and there was a hint of excitement in the air. Nash was graduating from high school but, more importantly, his grandpa was getting him the Firebird they’d been talking about. At least Nash was pretty sure he was getting it.

He'd just gotten home from school where, for the seniors at least, no actual schooling had happened. Most of the day had been filled with graduation practice, then everyone had been allowed to go home at noon, an unexpected surprise and, in hindsight, an unwelcome one.

Nash walked up the front steps and heard his grandparents talking in the kitchen. It was so odd for his grandpa to be at home on a work day that Nash stopped a moment to listen. He knew better than to eavesdrop, but sometimes he just couldn’t help himself.

“You told me he’d be gone by now, David.”

“He will be, it’s just gonna be a few more days,” he told his wife. “Have patience.”

“Patience!” Helen snapped. “Why, I been patient as a saint! And you ain’t the one’s got to feed him ‘n clean up his messes. You get to go to work, come home and be his best friend, leavin’ all the hard work and discipline to me.”

“Now honey, that ain’t true-”

“It’s gospel, sure enough! And insult to injury, you treat him better’n you do me!”

“Now Helen, that ain’t true and you know it. He lost his family and he’s lonesome. Don’t your Bible-”

“The Bible,” Helen interrupted.

David took a breath. “Don’t it say to be kind and gentle, and to take in orphans and strays, and…and do unto others as you’d have them do unto you?” he asked. “Don’t it say those things?”

“First Peter, four ‘n eight, ‘Above all, love each other.’ Above all, David.” Helen’s voice began to rise.  “That means I come first, not some mongrel you take in off the street so’s you can feel like some kinda hero.”

Now a rare spark of anger crept into David’s voice. “I ain’t tryin’ to be a hero, I just feel sorry for the little guy. He’ll be gone soon enough. In the meantime, try and show a little compassion and sympathy.”

Helen snorted. “Ain’t nobody ever showed me no sympathy. You just don’t get it, David, never have, never will. You’ve had it easy, but life ain’t fair, it ain’t fair at all. Life is hard.”

David’s voice receded as he walked out of the kitchen. “That may be true, Helen, but it don’t mean that you need to be.”

Nash turned and ran.

__________

Nash shook his head, trying to clear it from the ghosts of the past. Sure, it was painful, made all the more so because he’d loved his grandpa so much. After losing his parents, one to what would eventually become known as AIDS and the other to suicide-by-alcohol, the only person in the world who seemed to give even the slightest damn about him was his grandpa David. And to find out that it had all been a lie, that he’d just been some pity project, was devastating.

As he got out of the car he noticed his grandmother Helen standing on the front steps. How long had she been watching him go down memory lane? He supposed it didn’t matter. He was only here for…what? He didn’t even know. Closure? That was just more pop culture psychobabble bullshit. Helen may have been a mean-spirited Old Testament Christian, but she was also right: the world wasn’t fair. If you simply deal with reality head on then there’s no room for ambiguity. Deal. Done. Move on.

Which he was now determined to do. There may not be any real reason to be here, yet here he was. Might as well get on with it.

He walked to the steps and looked up. “Morning, Miss Helen.”

“Nash.” She’d never been one for small talk, just as she’d never been one for sentimentality and, true to form, neither was on display this morning. There was something, however, some intangible something that was different about her demeanor. Had she been crying? Of course, she’d just lost her husband of more than fifty years, but it was difficult for Nash to picture her displaying any emotion other than self-righteous anger.

The two just looked at one another for a moment, each lost in the past, until Helen relented a little. “You had a long drive. Come on in, we’ll get us some coffee.” She opened the door then turned back. “I ain’t got no liquor, and you better not, neither.”

“No ma’am,” Nash replied, “coffee’s fine.”

Walking into the house, Nash wasn’t really surprised to find that nothing had changed during the past twenty years. What he did find surprising was just how powerful the emotions were that were being dredged up. This was the very spot where he’d last seen his grandpa, where, instead of the keys to the Firebird he’d been expecting, David had held out a Bible. This was the door he’d closed forever on the one person in the world he had loved, whom he thought had loved him.

“You gonna sit down or what?” Nash snapped out of his reverie to see Helen at the small kitchen table, where they’d had so many tense meals, David asking about Nash’s day, Helen eating quietly, staring at her plate. This was ridiculous and painful. Why the hell was he here?

He stepped through the doorway, automatically sitting in his customary seat, even after all this time. Helen tilted her head to indicate the Mr. Coffee next to the window. Nash poured himself a cup, trying to figure out what to say.

“I, um…was he?” he began awkwardly. “I mean, what happened? Was he sick?”

Helen gave him a withering look and said, “I’da said it was a broke heart, but you did that twenty years ago, and he managed to survive.” Nash’s mouth dropped open, too stunned to say anything as she continued. “No, it was a heart attack. Not his first, but after you runnin’ off and him retiring from the railroad, he just sorta quit carin’.”

Nash was floored. Of all the things he had been expecting, this came out of left field. Far, far left field. Eventually he found his voice.

“What the hell?” he snapped. Helen leaned back as if he’d struck her. “How dare you say I had anything to do with any of what happened?” She opened her mouth to respond, but Nash cut her off. “No. No. I didn’t do a damn thing wrong.” Helen frowned at the curse word, but Nash plowed ahead.

“I know you’ve never loved me, and I made my peace with that. Of course, I never understood why. I mean, my mom was your own daughter! But fine, for whatever reason you couldn’t seem to stand having me around. But grandpa cared. He loved me, at least I thought he did. After my parents died he was all I had, but come to find out even that wasn’t true.”

Tears stung his eyes. Nash had thought he’d dealt with all these memories and emotions before, through a combination of drugs, alcohol and music, but it seemed that he was wrong. Everything felt knife sharp and ice cold, like it happened yesterday.

“What foolishness is this?” Helen said, her voice rising. “That man thought you hung the moon, boy. Oh, I know he loved me, but when it come to you and your momma, he was just head over heels. He always had a soft spot for y’all he never had for me. It dern near broke his heart when Brenda died, and you leavin’ like you did just finished the job.” Tears were beginning to form in her eyes as well, although they were more tears of anger. She’d lost the man she’d spent most of her life with, and for this selfish, ungrateful brat to deny responsibility couldn’t go unchallenged.

“Oh, I know how he really felt,” Nash continued. “I heard what y’all said that day. You couldn’t wait for me to get the hell out of your house and out of your life, and that didn’t surprise me none. But for him to agree? To tell you it’d just be a few more days? That I was just some kinda charity case, what’d he call me? A stray?” The tears were really flowing now as Nash relived the moment he heard those words.

But Helen was struck dumb. She sat opposite Nash, eyes widening as she began to see the enormity of the tragedy unfolding in front of her. Could it be? Could all the pain and sorrow of the past twenty years truly be the product of something so simple as a misunderstanding? She silently prayed that it wasn’t true, knowing that it was.

She reached across the table to touch his hand, but he jerked away. It was probably just as well. She wasn’t very demonstrative, and it may very well have been the first time she made physical contact with her grandson. May, in fact, have been the first time she thought of him as such. Life truly was unfair, and it seemed to her that some generational curses might never be broken.

“Oh, Nash,” she began, and something in her voice touched him. “Dear Lord, how do I say this? That conversation you overheard? That was…” She didn’t know how to continue. Words could never convey the depth of the tragedy she saw unfurling in every direction. Might, in fact, just inflect fresh wounds. Yet she had to try.

“Nash, do you remember Bandit? You found him with a broke leg, cute little guy. Course I was allergic, but you ‘n your grandpa had to try ‘n save him. You remember that, Nash?”

At first, nothing Helen said was making sense. Why bring up an episode from so long ago that had absolutely no bearing on-

Then, slowly, understanding began to creep in. And as the magnitude of what she was trying to tell him became evident, Nash felt as if his entire world was caving in on him. His head sank to the table and he began to sob uncontrollably, unashamedly, as he recalled that day when his world had been torn apart. And apparently, the day he’d torn his grandpa’s world apart.

__________

Nash turned and ran. He ran until he couldn’t breathe, until his legs gave out, and he simply collapsed beside a crepe myrtle, curled up and cried.

He didn’t know how long he’d stayed there, or who might have seen him, and he didn’t care. Life had shown him there was no value in caring. After his mother died his father had committed suicide, apparently deciding that he needed her more than Nash might have needed him. His grandmother had made it very clear that she had no love to spare for her only grandchild. And now the one person he had left, the man who had made Nash feel safe and loved and finally at home, that man had been shown to be a liar. Maybe he thought it was for a good cause, that he was showing Nash some small kindness, but it was also him who taught Nash that there was nothing worse than a thief, and what was a liar but a special kind of thief? A liar was someone who would steal your trust, and there was no way to get it back. Ever.

Eventually, Nash got up and made his way home. He figured that, if nothing else, he’d get a car out of the deal, then use it to put as many miles as possible between him and the people who had treated him so badly.

When he got home, his grandpa was waiting on the porch, a small package beside him. Not being good with confrontation, his plan had been to act as if nothing was wrong, get the keys and leave, ostensibly to head to the Saenger for graduation. His grandpa, however, saw that he’d been crying and wanted to know what was wrong.

“I just got some bad news is all,” Nash replied, not looking David in the eye. David knew there was more to it and took a guess.

“Girl trouble? Is it Rainey?” David was no better than Nash when it came to matters of the heart and rushed to fill the silence. “Hey, it’ll be okay. Graduating high school is a big deal. Suddenly you’re an adult, and you gotta figure out who you are and where you belong. But she’ll come around, I promise. And,” he reached for the package next to him, “I think this might make you feel a little better.”

David was practically beaming as he handed the box to Nash, whose first thought was how heavy it was. He looked at it, then at David, who nodded. “Go on, now.”

Nash lifted the lid and saw that he was holding a Bible. It was beautiful, bound in gray leather with his name imprinted in silver at the bottom, ‘Nash Edward Gray.’

Without a word, Nash dropped the Bible, turned and walked away.

__________

As Nash cried at the table, Helen left the kitchen and returned a moment later with a small box. She put a hand on his head to smooth out his hair and he didn’t protest. When he finally looked up, Helen said gently, “I think you and me got a lot to talk about, but first, I think this is something you oughta have.” She took the lid off the box and showed him the Bible inside. He could only stare until she offered him the box and said, “Go on, now.”

Nash took out the Bible, just as beautiful as it had been all those years ago. He opened the cover and saw a sheet of paper with his grandpa’s distinctive handwriting. ‘For Nash. I couldn’t be more proud, son.’

With shaking hands, he unfolded the note and another slip of paper drifted to the table. It was a check for $1,250, made out to Robert Bouse. On the memo line it read ‘For 1968 Firebird.’

Nash wept.

__________

To Be A Man

Lyrics and Music By

Nash Gray

I was just seventeen, that car was a dream I thought would never come true

Grandpa had hinted that I might get it that summer, when I graduated from school

When that day arrived, so sure I would drive home, it seemed that he had other plans

He met me at the door with nothing more than the Good Book in his hands

He held out the Bible and said, “Now, I know this ain’t what you expected

But maybe it’ll help you down the road someday.”

The pride in his eyes turned to tears that he cried as I turned my back on him

And I walked away. We haven’t spoken since that day

Grandpa passed away, and the very next day I saw that Bible again

It had been many years and I’d never shed a tear ‘til the angels came and took him away

I opened the cover and discovered there a check folded into a note

I read it and cried, and if I live forever I’ll never forget what he wrote

“The money’s because I love you, and the Bible’s because I care.

I know that you’ll always be the best that you can.

I’m proud that you made the grade, you learned your lessons well.

Congratulations, today you become a man.”

Something inside of me melted then, and suddenly I saw the light

It may be too late, but I finally understand

Love is the greatest gift you can give, and when you get it, hold on tight

Oh, Grandpa, I learned my lesson, and today I became a man

I love you and miss you, and I wish I could see you again

Now that I’ve become a man