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21. A Bicycle In Muskegon
And there was another matter on my mind as that second year of seminary began to wind down in the spring of 1967. It concerned a seminarian from the previous year.
Frank, the farm boy from Pennsylvania who smoked his way through the first year of seminary did not return for the second year. I do not know if that was his choice, or the seminary’s. My guess is it was mutual.
Joe, the young man from Muskegon with the underlying problem none of us could figure out also did not come back for the second year. I am very certain that was the seminary’s decision.
But to tell the rest of this story, I need to go back to the spring of the first year, probably March of 1966, when both Frank and Joe were still students at the school. Joe invited us to come to visit his mother in Muskegon. None of us wanted to go. We were not certain what we would find. On the other hand, that itself was intriguing. Maybe we would find the answer to whatever it was that made Joe the way he was.
Frank and I decided to go. Frank drove Joe and me the relatively few miles to Muskegon from Grand Rapids, and, with Joe’s difficult to follow instructions, or maybe even in spite of them, we found the place. Soon we were sitting at a cluttered kitchen table in Joe’s cluttered home with Joe’s mother preparing us hamburgers in her cluttered kitchen.
Frank and I looked at each other in disbelief as she worked busily among the clutter, and, yes, dirt. We were not certain we wanted to eat in that house, but, for Joe’s sake, and for his mother’s sake, we did. We both figured she was giving to us out of her little, and that to refuse would be an insult to a woman who looked like life had already given her plenty of insults. It was soon to give her one more.
We visited for awhile, and then it was time to return to Grand Rapids. Later, Frank and I talked about our visit. We still did not understand what made Joe the way he was. Yes, his home was not clean, but that in itself does not make one act the way Joe acted. There was something else, but neither of us knew what it was.
We were aware of the fact that there was no father present in the home, nor even mentioned. We noted no pictures in the home that might suggest a dad, either dead or alive and absent. But Frank, who shared an apartment with Joe that second semester of the first school year, asked Joe about his father one day a few weeks after our visit to his mom in Muskegon.
Joe’s dad was, apparently, one of those men who never quite makes it in life. Somewhat of a drifter, and unable to hold steady employment, his wife and son suffered from the lack of stability he brought on his family. In spite of this difficult home life, Joe managed to grow to young adulthood, finishing high school and college as a fairly normal young man. He had found the Lord early, and was active in a local church in Muskegon. He even had been engaged. He had shown us the engagement ring, which he still had, and which he had brought to school with him.
But one day, just a few minutes of one day, forever changed Joe, his personality and his destiny. Just one day. Like so many tragic days, there was no hint of what was to come when Joe arrived home that day. Writers and English teachers like to talk of foreshadowing, that feature of good writing that gives the reader clues of what is to come, although the reader does not know it until after the event foreshadowed takes place. For example, in John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, Kino, the hero/victim of the story early on watches an ant get trapped and eaten by an ant lion, an insect which cleverly builds a trap for unsuspecting passing ants and catches them for his dinner. Kino watches this take place, unaware that a trap is about to be set that will destroy his family. That is foreshadowing. But in real life, that does not always happen. And if it does, we don’t see it, until after the
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fact. But in this case, I do not think Joe or his Mom had any foreshadowing of the tragic event that happened on that day Joe came home and found his father’s brains and blood all over the kitchen walls, the very same kitchen walls Frank and I had been surrounded by while Joe’s Mom made us hamburgers. The man, despondent over his situation in life, had taken a gun and ended his life. And Joe, making the discovery, was never to be “normal” again.
Because of the way this incident changed Joe, his fiancé decided she could not continue the relationship. She needed to be a wife to a husband, not a mother to a strange boy who had regressed in his social abilities. It was not very long after this that Joe applied to and somehow was accepted by the seminary.
Soon after Frank discovered the truth, from Joe himself, and shared it with me, the school decided not to allow Joe to return in the fall for the second semester of seminary. Joe was disappointed, but the school really had no choice. Joe could never survive as a pastor or a missionary. People would not be comfortable seeking his counsel or advice, not when there was this obvious undercurrent of mystery and failure just below the surface.
That was the year before. But now it was the spring of 1967. It would turn out to be a very good year for me. It would not be a good year for Joe’s mother.
Joe had not been a student since the previous June. He had returned to Muskegon to live with his mother. He had gotten a job — a job consistent with his level of skills and accomplishment. He would provide his mother with financial support and she would give him the emotional support he needed. Together, with the Lord, they could make it.
Joe had a car while he was in Grand Rapids. He did have a driver’s license. But he had to give up the car. I am certain finances played a part in the decision. To save money, he rode a bicycle to and from work.
But this particular day in the spring of 1967, like so many other significant days, began enveloped in insignificance that hung like a fog over the landscape. Jim set out for work on his bicycle, as he did each day. Somewhere along the busy road he took to work, he lost his balance on the bicycle. I think the car ahead of him suddenly had to stop, or it swerved into his path. I do not know the details. But Joe lost his balance, fell over on his bike, and was instantly crushed by the car following him.
Some of the seminarians went to Muskegon for the funeral. I was invited to go, too, but I used Union Bank, my employer, as an excuse. I had to work, I said. The truth is, I probably could have gotten off for the funeral if I had asked. But I didn’t want to ask. I was a coward, and I did not want to see Joe’s mother in the condition I imagined she would be in. So I carried important papers around Grand Rapids for Union Bank while several of my seminary buddies went to Muskegon to minister to a woman who needed all the encouragement anyone could give her. I opted for work instead of ministry, for carrying papers instead of carrying God’s love to a needy one. I cannot justify my decision now, as I could not then. I did not justify it then; I rationalized it. I can’t even rationalize it now.
The strange young man with the dark secret, the young man with whom I had shared a bedroom for six months, the young man whose Mom had fixed me a hamburger in her dirty kitchen, went home to be with the Lord, leaving his mother to grieve over one more tragedy inflicting itself on her. And I carried papers for Union Bank. But Joe was absent from the body, and present with the Lord.
Soon that second year of seminary drew to a close. I still had my job. But I had lost a friend. And lunch-line girl still was not interested in me.
Copyright © 2009, Thomas M. Parsons, All Rights Reserved. - 60
