At The Gate
Stories
56 Stories For Preaching
When Carla learned about the forest fires in Montana later
that summer, she wondered about Jimmy. According to the road
atlas she and Jimmy had studied at the kitchen table, the area he
was heading toward was now burned over.
Carla had liked the red-headed young man -- no, he was still
pretty much of a boy -- that was the problem. Had a man hinting of
hardened look or slick story presented himself at her door, she
would have dispatched him to the church office. The ministerial
association could provide him with the requested food or gas
voucher.
Carla didn't care so much about the usual transients with
their alcohol-breath manipulation and shifty eyes. The best thing
to do was give them the hand-out and send them on their way.
Carla drew from the freezer a bag of last year's strawberries
and a quart of stew to go with the biscuits. When had she become
so cynical? She once fancied herself as mother earth, saving
these strays with peanut butter sandwiches. Somehow, most of the
transients had already become things to themselves as well as to
her. She too felt shame. It was safer to avoid eye contact. To
say she was helping them in the name of Christ seemed a mockery.
Jimmy was different. The boy who stood before her gate that
day wanted to know if he could take the rake from her hands and
finish the yard in exchange for a meal.
"Only if you take a good shower and let me run your clothes
through the washer," she said, surprising herself. Her own son
was only a few years younger.
Bringing Jimmy into the house had been a toss up between
allowing fear or hope to get the upper hand. Carla knew the
personal risk. She knew she couldn't feed everyone who came to
the door. Word of that sort of kindness spread quickly through a
pipeline.
"Does your husband have a razor?" Jimmy asked from the
bathroom. He emerged wrapped in her husband's plaid flannel robe.
Standing in the yard, he looked like a cross between a '60s
hippie and a harvester. Minus the layers of county road dust and
the scruffy patches of chin fuzz, he was an ordinary kid.
He told her as he ate the stew and strawberries that he was
making his way from his mother's house in Arkansas to his daddy's
cabin in Montana. He had a summer job there cleaning out timber
for the park service.
It was farther than he thought from Nebraska to Montana, but
he didn't ask for money. Carla knew not to offer it. "Wait a
minute," she said on the front porch. She went into the house
then put something into his hand. It was the cross of two old
soldered flat-head nails she used to let her son keep in his
pocket when she had to be away on trips.
"To go with you, Jimmy," she said, "for the journey."
that summer, she wondered about Jimmy. According to the road
atlas she and Jimmy had studied at the kitchen table, the area he
was heading toward was now burned over.
Carla had liked the red-headed young man -- no, he was still
pretty much of a boy -- that was the problem. Had a man hinting of
hardened look or slick story presented himself at her door, she
would have dispatched him to the church office. The ministerial
association could provide him with the requested food or gas
voucher.
Carla didn't care so much about the usual transients with
their alcohol-breath manipulation and shifty eyes. The best thing
to do was give them the hand-out and send them on their way.
Carla drew from the freezer a bag of last year's strawberries
and a quart of stew to go with the biscuits. When had she become
so cynical? She once fancied herself as mother earth, saving
these strays with peanut butter sandwiches. Somehow, most of the
transients had already become things to themselves as well as to
her. She too felt shame. It was safer to avoid eye contact. To
say she was helping them in the name of Christ seemed a mockery.
Jimmy was different. The boy who stood before her gate that
day wanted to know if he could take the rake from her hands and
finish the yard in exchange for a meal.
"Only if you take a good shower and let me run your clothes
through the washer," she said, surprising herself. Her own son
was only a few years younger.
Bringing Jimmy into the house had been a toss up between
allowing fear or hope to get the upper hand. Carla knew the
personal risk. She knew she couldn't feed everyone who came to
the door. Word of that sort of kindness spread quickly through a
pipeline.
"Does your husband have a razor?" Jimmy asked from the
bathroom. He emerged wrapped in her husband's plaid flannel robe.
Standing in the yard, he looked like a cross between a '60s
hippie and a harvester. Minus the layers of county road dust and
the scruffy patches of chin fuzz, he was an ordinary kid.
He told her as he ate the stew and strawberries that he was
making his way from his mother's house in Arkansas to his daddy's
cabin in Montana. He had a summer job there cleaning out timber
for the park service.
It was farther than he thought from Nebraska to Montana, but
he didn't ask for money. Carla knew not to offer it. "Wait a
minute," she said on the front porch. She went into the house
then put something into his hand. It was the cross of two old
soldered flat-head nails she used to let her son keep in his
pocket when she had to be away on trips.
"To go with you, Jimmy," she said, "for the journey."

