Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: INDEFATIGABLE (02/11/16)
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TITLE: Atlas Relieved | Previous Challenge Entry
By Zacharia Fox
02/18/16 -
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My father was a moonshiner and never was around. Pops encouraged me not to hold it against him. “James. Some people ain’t cut out to be parents.” I think he was right. My mom, Pops’ daughter, died delivering me.
“What was she like?” I asked once, as we stood on the deck looking out over the palette of autumn maples decorating the foothills.
He puffed out cigarette smoke. “Stubborn.” That made sense. Pops is stubborn, and so am I.
That iron streak made him master of the finer things; hunting, fishing, and arguing. An expert litigator, he once convinced a member of the local Ku Klux Klan to have a colored family over for dinner.
“How could you know if you’re really superior, if you never sat with ‘em eye to eye.” Of course Pops set him up with one of the most educated black men in Kentucky, Dr. Charles King. They're still friends today.
Pops made a habit of stacking life’s deck in his favor. “Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat,” he used to preach.
Pops was John Wayne, and Sean Connery, and Frankie singing ‘I did it my way’. He was everything old and strong. And he was never weak. Never.
I was weak. I had my limits. And that was a problem, because Pops was the yardstick by which I measured my life. I didn’t measure up.
Dr. Charles saw me heading down the wrong road and asked me to church. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Jesus spoke right to my soul, desperate as it was for rest. “Weakness is a human condition. But when you can admit you’re weak; when you can admit your sin; when you can admit you need him; then he can be strong in you. His grace is perfect in your weakness.”
My knees, weak as my virtue, buckled at the altar. Jesus was everywhere around me, taking from me not only my sin, but the profane accusation that festered in the shadowed corners of my soul. “You’re a mistake.”
When I stood, I stood as one redeemed and one belonging.
“Good for you,” Pops said as we stood on the deck looking out over the foothills. And he meant it. "But I understand guilt. We can't change what's done."
As I watched him there, coughing after a drag from his cigarette, I saw something I’d never seen before. A tired old man. It was a strange moment, welcoming him to the human race. But, only then did I love him for what he was, instead of what he was to me.
Years later, I became a trial lawyer. I was choosing jury members, what Pops called stacking the deck, when my aunt called. “He’s dying, James. He’s asking for you.”
Now, smoke climbs from the chimney of a ranch worn as the man it holds. Inside, the house wears the familiar scent of a seventy year old habit, and there he is, bones jutting from under a cotton-white white sheet.
“Pops.” His head jerks toward me.
“Come here, son!” I take his hand and he squeezes frantically.
“What’s wrong, Pops?”
He opens his mouth, but only a whimper escapes. He bites his lip. “I’m scared...”
I ask Jesus for help in my heart. I can feel his presence. “Pops. Jesus will take that fear.”
“I can’t.” He coughs blood onto a rag and gathers himself. “It’s my burden to bear.”
Tears spill from my eyes, pleading.
He looks away.
“Once upon a time, Pops, I thought you were Atlas, shouldering the world.” He clings to my hand. “But you weren’t meant to carry that weight. You’re tired. Jesus says, ‘Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.’ You ain’t stronger than sin. But Jesus is.”
“It feels like cheating; taking forgiveness so late in the game.”
“Well, win if you can, lose if you must... But always cheat." He turned to me, his eyes waterfalls over faint grin. "You don't got to stand tall no more. Just fall into his everlasting arms."
Pops squeezes my hand and nods.
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Big ole crocodile tears welling up from your superbly thought out and brilliantly executed story.
One of my favorites of all time!
“Well, win if you can, lose if you must... But always cheat."Great writing!