Radiology



   "What are you hiding from?"
   Brad and Ray turned to look at the middle-aged man who was on the cusp of interrupting the giddy August sacrament of ding-dong-ditching.
   "We're just playing a game, mister. Don't spoil it," came Ray's hoarsely-loud whisper from between the bases of the fragrant shrubs and the slightly offensive trash cans.
   The unfamiliar man continued to gaze at the two summer-splashed teens with relaxed eyes that wanted to tell a secret.
   "Guys, shut up!" a taunting, haughty voice called out over the grass that was halfway-painted with its own staccato shadows, one side of each blade finished in the night's darkness, the other stripped by the garish yard lights. The two boys turned to look towards the corner of the sparsely-lit house nearby. "I told you to keep quiet. What are you doing? Why are you talking to that guy?"
   Brad motioned curtly with puckered lips and raised eyebrows that Doug should keep quiet.
   In response, Doug called out loudly in a falsely suspicious and deep voice, "Hey, what are you kids doing in those bushes?"
   Hearing their companion betray them with what would surely rouse the inhabitants of several nearby houses to investigate, Ray and Brad bolted from their hiding spot and sprinted down the street and around the corner. Alone in the dim cloud of the witching hour and away from their last scene of mischief, the two slowed to a silent walk that bent them towards their homes.
   A voice behind them snatched their focus from their footsteps and the surrounding foggy air that reminded them of a scene from an unwritten book.
   "I've heard the saying that youth runs from us all, but you boys were quicker than a shot." It was the same stranger that had interrupted their night games. Neither Ray nor Brad could hide the half-smiles that had just been planted on their faces and were growing in response to an adult who apparently didn't act or speak like any grown up they had known. It seemed appropriate to treat him as a peer in this instant.
   "I'm sorry about Doug, mister," said Brad. "He's a little-"
   "-He's a little boy who wants to think he's a man, but who knows that deep down he'll always be little and will only grow more and more tired the more he tries to convince himself otherwise," finished the newcomer, who with these words found himself attracting the adventure-seeking intrigue of these young half-adults.
   "Ah, well… He can be kind of mean and whiny, but I don't know about all that you said. What made you say all that?"
   "I see things," replied the stranger. "I see beyond thought and skin. I see through people." He spoke with a voice that blanketed all he perceived with authority and gave a listener the feeling that one already knew what he was saying.
   At this point, Doug, on his own walk home, intercepted the trio and broke the spell of curiosity-on-the-brink-of-revelation being woven among the three. "Let's go, you guys. You shouldn't be talking to weird strangers anyway."
   "Sorry, mister. We should be getting inside about now," said Ray as the boys stood up and broke away from their strange visitor. "Have a nice night."

* * *

   The next morning was the beginning of another weekly reminder of what summer meant to the two boys; a day that seemed like it would never end; a day to go down the list of adventures and mostly-imaginary conquests in the young minds of two boys; it was Saturday.
   The boys could be found after a Saturday lunch at the soda fountain where all of the grand ideas and amber possibilities of the day's potential crystallized into a plan that was always more exciting than the one of the last week and was sealed in agreement by their excited whispers.
   This Saturday they were surprised to hear the voice from the previous night claim, "He's a sprightly young fellow, isn't he?"
   Brad and Ray broke their huddle and turned to see this captivating visitor sitting comfortably next to them, as if this particular seat had been his since before the soda shop had ever opened.
   "Oh, hey mister." Ray hid his eagerness to find out more about this eccentric and apparently benevolent man. To Ray and Brad, his presence seemed like it could provide enough adventure for a whole year of Saturdays. Brad gave his vote to follow Ray's lead with a hushed request: "Ask him who he's talking about."
   "Mister, it's only us and Mr. Einar, the store owner," Ray said. "Who's so sprightly?" Mr. Einar was placing more summer merchandise and aspirin on his counters; his world-worn ears that had listened to the hearts of many women and heard the noise of lives in many countries did not pick up this conversation; his grainy spine creaked under the stress like the beams of an old ship as he placed his wares; his wizened and blackened eyes saw nothing but the boxes he reached into and the twenty-five-cent treasures he placed on the shelves; his gray hair tufted gently over his ears and may as well have not even been there for its thinness.
   "That store owner is exactly whom I mean. Don't you see his curiosity that billows up around him and all he touches? Can you not feel his willingness to laugh at himself and the fact that he exists and can touch this world? In fact, I'd say he encourages others to laugh with him." The visitor was not venturing forth conjectures, but looked as if he was reading this information from Mr. Einar himself, his eyes darting around the old man's frame. "Is the perfume of his everyday-adventures not strong enough for your nostrils? The scent of his years abroad, his years fighting, his years in love, and his years really alive? He has no rumblings of self-consciousness, nor a bitter taste of fermented wounds. He is hopeful and down-to-earth, naive and experienced, faithful and wide-eyed, mischievous and wise. He's like you boys."
   Brad and Ray pondered for a few minutes all they had just heard from their new teacher as if the words were a fresh dew forming in their minds.
   Ray spoke up first. "He's like a grandpa who is best friends with all his grand kids."
   "Well, he's friends with us, isn't he? I sure know I'd like him for my grandpa," added Brad. "How did he get like that? I want to be like that when I'm old."
   With a raised eyebrow and a tilted glance the newfound companion confessed, "Only he and God know his story. I don't know how he was, or why he is, or how he'll end up. All I can see is what's before me."
   "So do you think he's always been that way?" queried Brad. He was trying to test this stranger; he wanted to probe the depth of his omniscience, to see how far his invisible horizon extended into the past.
   "Yes, I do. Only because it's rare for people to change, especially a change for the better. Most anything that's a normal part of life can bring a man lower if he doesn't see a larger picture. A death, a birth, poverty, affluence, love, hate, loss, gain, and especially frustration help a man tear away the foundation of his virtues. A man who sees no bigger purpose in his life will sometimes let a pebble of trouble bring down the sharp, brittle buttresses of his potential." Looking at his fingers as if they were holding a rare and exquisite morsel to sampled slowly, the gentleman gathered his words. "Sometimes, however, it will happen that a man in that situation will be brought up-though he may be fully grown-through love, or a marriage, or his children, or a burden he bears well, or a pain he sees an end to. And what's more interesting is that these same things, when on the minds of men with faith in something beside themselves will often make a man stronger, wiser, sadder, younger, and more thankful all at once."
   The boys sat in stunned silence at this outpouring of life-experience and empirical wisdom. Their search for excitement and adventure was tapping into the idea of living life as an adventure; it was blossoming at the opportunity to take the risk of waking up every morning and jumping off a cliff into the pursuit of their passions. The feeling was that of being privy to secrets normally not revealed except from men on their death-beds. It was as if they had peered into a treasure chest whose bouillon was experience and found more riches in the map than in the ancient gold.
   "Shoot, mister, do you want to join us today? We were gonna go fishing at Saddle Creek," asked Ray.
   "I have joined you today, and I will again later. For now, I just want to see the people of your town." With this the visitor slid off of his stool and onto the ancient dust-entombed floor of the shop and glided out the door. The boys had nothing to say to each other and sat in the silence of an artist before a great unveiling, bearing the easy burden of discoveries and realizations they sensed would soon be upon them.

* * *

   Doug had joined Ray and Brad at Saddle Creek to build what memories they could together, but this day Doug seemed to have lost the snap of voiced discontent that usually accompanied his presence. Both Ray and Brad sensed this unusual submissiveness in their companion but were hesitant to mention it, as friends may do when they realize they care for someone more than they expected.
   "If you couldn't live at home, where would you want to live?" Doug broke the silence with this question.
   Brad responded, "I don't get it. Why couldn't I live at home? What's pushing me out?"
   "Say you just couldn't live there and you just had to go live with other people. Where would you go?"
   "You mean I'd have to leave my parents? That's tough. I think I'd go with my Uncle Chuck and Aunt Paula. They're almost as good as my mom and dad."
   Doug let his eyes drift around his two friends and finally they rested on the shimmering surface of the shallow creek. His silence as Brad awaited a response spoke to the other boys more loudly than a single tear could have. Brad and Ray's relaxed smiles sunk as their faces grew concerned.
   "Doug, this about your mom?" asked Ray.
   There was a minute when Doug blinked back the weight of his emotion and circumstances to reply, "No, it's about my pop. He told me last night…"
   "What did he say to you, Doug? Are you moving away?"
   Again Doug tried to beat his eyelids against troubles that were clearly welling up. "He told me that the doctor said he's sick, just like Mama was. Same damn thing."
   "Aw, geez, Doug, I can't believe it. I don't know what to say," sympathized Ray.
   "I can't understand it," continued Doug, "first God takes my mama, now he's taking my pop. It doesn't make sense. I can't think past tomorrow but I can't stop thinking about five years from now at the same time. I don't know what to think and I don't know what to do or feel; everything is wrong and misshapen and out of place."
   Now the tears were slowly coming and as they did they silenced Brad and Ray. They had never seen this companion of theirs break apart like this. They had only known him after his mother had died, and he had always held up a shield of independence and self-reliance; there had always been a sense that Doug was trying to step on them so that he could have someone below him to look down at. It seemed that now was the first time either Ray or Brad had seen Doug release the previously unidentified tenseness and unease that was holding up this very shield, and they were awed and pleased and saddened and made to feel as fragile and needy as Doug now appeared.
   "What's gonna happen now? What are you going to do?"
   "I don't know. I don't know."
   The day passed in a shared comforting silence that boomed its compassion and support as it wrapped the three boys in their mutual understanding. This was all that Brad and Ray knew to do, and it was all that Doug could have asked for. When the time came to head back, somehow they all knew it in unison and got up to leave.
   "Guys… well, I know in the past I've been… a pain. But-" began Doug.
   "Don't, Doug. We know."

* * *

   Monday found Ray, Brad, and Doug in the corner store again sipping on cherry colas. Somehow the time at the creek had changed all three of them, especially Doug. There was a drastic new humility and openness about him that loomed large yet was nearly undetectable. The shielding defensiveness he had constructed around himself had been shattered and now the other boys were being painfully softened as they treaded on the remaining shards. Brad and Ray were developing a new level of acceptance and expectation for Doug and the changes he had experienced, and were becoming sensitive to the potential for anyone to be smashed and resculpted by life.
   "Who's your friend?" came the familiar voice of the visitor from behind the boys.
   "Hey mister, I didn't expect to see you again. This is Doug; remember you saw him when we were running around the neighborhood," offered Ray.
   "Why-well I'll be. I do see it now. You're different, boy. All the significance that you've built into yourself is falling away. I can see the even stronger and smaller person you were underneath. The person you didn't know you wanted to be. And the pain… I'm sorry for whatever it is you are going through, but it looks like you're coming out better for it."
   "Uh, mister, I don't think Doug wants to wade through what's going on with him."
   Doug answered for himself, "No, he knows something. I want to hear him."
   The visitor continued, "My boy, you're just on the brink of finding the beginning of the thread of real life. There's reason here. Not your reason or mine, but there's a reason why you're alive and why whatever happens happens. There's purpose that is bigger than you or me or the life of this town or this country. All things work together, and you are part of that. You and your life have a purpose that is bigger than yourself. Continue on the path you're on; don't inflate yourself anymore; let your plastic covering melt away even as you are doing now and never stop seeking that purpose. Never."
   While Doug seemed to smile with sadness and a glimpse of new wisdom waiting to be explored, Ray and Brad furrowed their brows. They could only scratch the surface of the meaning behind these words, and hope to remember them long enough to realize their full import one day.
   The stranger turned to leave.
   "Wait a second mister," called Brad. "With all of this talk about purpose, we still don't know about yours. What's your purpose?"
   The stranger gave the same sad smile that was on Doug's face while looking at Ray and Brad, letting his eyes linger over each, and then turned to Doug. He gave a small exhalation that was part laugh and part sigh.
   "This is."
   With that, the strange visitor to their small town turned and walked out the door, and was only seen again in the memories of these boys.





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