Like Grits

Author's Warning: Stop. Do not allow your expectations to lure you into this story that has not a hint of sex, nor a scent of romance.

Beyond this paragraph is a story plot centered on the mystery of grace. It is an ambiguous experience that doesn't fit expectations. Maybe this story doesn't fit here - not if one is expecting an erotic story. Then again, since this story is about defying expectations and explanations, then maybe that's a reason to submit it here. Maybe. Maybe not. --Sandy

*****

It had the unsettled feel of the start to a maybe-ish kind of day. Victor did not like maybe-ish kind of days. He had no idea how all the things were supposed to fit together. He wished he knew - but he didn't.

Maybe it will turn out to be warm and sunny.

Maybe.

Maybe the clouds will thicken and it will stay cool and blustery.

It was nothing, if not a perfectly maybe-ish kind of spring morning. And that was just the odd feeling Victor had about the day - or for that matter, the arrangement to spend Spring Break weekend with his father. He was unsure how he was supposed to make all the things fit together and balance.

His father would be swinging by to pick him up this morning. It was out of his way to drive down here to where Victor and his mom had moved during the divorce. They moved because she needed to be close to family and 'her people.' His father had arranged to get custody of Victor this weekend so they could spend two days camping before he returned him to his mother on Monday afternoon. After the camping trip, Joseph would continue on to the academic conference where he was presenting an environmental biology paper.

Victor was trapped in the middle of a maybe-ish spring morning waiting for his father..

During the split, it had been agreed between Victor's mother and father to let their son decide when and where he would spend his parental time. Victor preferred to hang out where he already was, with his mom. He felt like he should want to be with his dad more, but those times at his dad's place just didn't ever feel relaxed. It wasn't that Victor and his dad hadn't tried to make their lives mesh, just that the visits always turned out to be awkward.

His mom was firm in her belief that a weekend camping trip with his dad would be a good thing for him. Even if it meant backing out of the Spring Break church youth retreat he had signed up for with a bunch of his friends. Instead, Victor had packed his camping stuff according to the list his dad had given him, trying to not pack his maybe-ish ambivalence in with his gear.

He fidgeted until mid-morning, waiting for his dad to arrive, hoping maybe this time he could make all the things fit with his father. An unresolved grayenss clutched at his ribs as he hoped for good, but was expecting not-so-good.

The custody exchange was handled with crisp civility and dispatched with emotional coolness. All three of them sensed a dense expectation for this trip. Victor felt that most of the weighted expectations landed on him. No one had meant to place any expectation on him before or during the hand-off; but there it was. Nobody wanted this cold, damp weight of expectation to creep in on this father-son weekend. Nobody in fact acknowledged it. It was a slumbering beast, lodged in his throat, pushing against his chest as it sunk heavily in his guts to hide.

Once Victor's gear was packed into the Jeep, his mother forced a smile as she offered some advice to her ex-husband; "Joseph, Victor did not eat any breakfast this morning, maybe you should think about the two of you stopping somewhere along the way to eat before too long."

"OK. Maybe I'll keep that in mind. We'll be back around late afternoon on Monday -- God willing and the creek don't rise."

The Jeep pulled away from the curb, but no one waved their good-byes. The morning was overcast and a bit breezy from the south wind. Joseph had expectations that maybe the clouds would burn off later in the day, and then maybe it would be good camping weather for him and the boy after all. Maybe it would all work out.

From where his ex-wife had resettled, it was about a two hour drive to the state park where he and his son would camp. Joseph had told his son they were headed up toward "tham thar hills 'n hollers, where tham good ol' country boys was real men -- and so were the women." Victor forced a smile at his dad's overt attempt at hillbilly twang, trying to convince himself his dad was just trying to be humorous, but deep down he suspected it was a mocking barb cast toward his mother's kind of folks.

Joseph shot a satisfied glance at his passenger, he was pleased that his son was maturing into a young human being with his own ideas and thoughts, able to reason and form a logical argument. Joseph saw this weekend as an opportunity to spend time with Victor and contribute to his son's intellectual formation.

Victor kept his eyes on the road in front alternately glancing up to the sky out the door window. He was hoping to see the sun break through the clouds. He hoped maybe it would be sunny.

His dad kept up a barrage of questions. Victor did not turn to his left to look across at his dad when answering his questions. His dad's questions were his way of engaging with Victor and trying to connect with his son's life and thoughts, but it seemed to Victor to be more of an interrogation than a conversation.

At one point it came out that Victor had had to cancel his plans for the church youth retreat with his friends in order to go on this camping trip with his dad. Victor quickly added, "Mom thought that this camping trip would be a good thing," feeling he needed to head-off what could have been interpreted as another point of friction between his parents. He hated having to explain and defend his mom's actions in front of his dad.

Once Joseph heard about this weekend's conflict of choices for Victor; he felt he had to sell his son on this trip all the more. "This camping trip is going to be a great bonding experience," as soon as he said it, he felt a pang of regret for dredging up such a touchy-feely phrase as 'bonding experience'. Victor's dad promoted the earnest values of sitting around a campfire, cooking over an open flame, watching the night sky and discussing deep ideas, mind-to-mind, father to son.

Joseph had in mind to take a couple of day-hikes with Victor, showing him the astounding variety of the natural world. Together they would explore and marvel at the complex web of life that had evolved through time. His background as a biology professor would be useful in engaging his son's intellect. Joseph would share how each plant filled a specific environmental niche determined by the lithology of the substrate, the amount of exposure to sun and moisture and a host of other factors. Father and son would explore the ecological systems from mountain top to deeply incised stream canyons, seeing how each animal species, be it insect or mammal, fit into its evolved space. This is what Joseph loved and wanted to share with his son..

Joseph finished his pitch to Victor for their weekend together by defending the father-son camping experience as superior to the competing church event. He emphasized that Victor would enjoy gaining knowledge of his surroundings. In Joseph's mind, the attainment of knowledge was the purest form of pleasure. He expected that Victor would grow to appreciate the fact of evolution and how over time, life had evolved to fill diverse biozones. There were logical reasons why specific plants and animals were living where they were. It could all be explained by science.

This camping experience would help Victor discover that the world was not a matter of magic, or in need of supernatural explanations. Observation, reason and science answered all questions. Joseph saw this trip as a time for Victor to see with his eyes and understand with his mind the wonder of natural history and to discard any superstitious notions that a god was needed to spontaneously place everything on earth in six days.

Victor didn't want to get into an argument with his dad just as they were getting started on their weekend together, so he found some common ground and acknowledged, that, "Yeah, I kind of don't think it makes sense that the Bible literally means that everything happened in six days, because of the dinosaurs and other extinct fossils."

Joseph beamed at his son's expression of independent thought, and told him, "This is going to be a fun trip! Knowledge is always good, and when you understand the real reason for things, you are truly free and at one with the universe. You will no longer have to rely on untested and unproven ideas like religion for an explanation. Man living in harmony with his environment through reason and understanding -- that my son, is the true meaning of life."

Once Joseph had laid out the intellectual basis for their weekend of exploration, he believed he had made a compelling case to his son. He was pleased that Victor seemed to share his vision for their camping experience. The dull density they had existed between them at the morning's beginning seemed to have dissipated. Joseph put his hand on his son's knee, "Remember, there are no mysteries that can't be solved with logic and scientific investigation. I choose not to live in a world of maybes. A superstitious world filled with the unexplained, no that's not what we will find together this weekend. There is always an answer."

Victor looked once again toward the sky; the sun was still behind some low-level clouds the color of a three-day old bruise.

Joseph piloted his Jeep up the state highway while forming his thoughts on how he would approach all of the subjects he wanted to show and teach his son over the coming two days. He relished the thought of lying back at the campfire and looking up through the tree tops at our bright Milky Way Galaxy, introducing Victor to the heavens and the physical laws governing the motions of our solar system. He hoped the conversation with his son would lead into philosophical talk. Now that Victor was old enough, they could speak of the great men, men of reason whom Joseph admired; Newton who used mathematics to dispel the superstitious notion that the universe needed the hand of a god to move the sun and stars, it was all explained by the laws of physics. Galileo, persecuted by the Church for having discovered the truth that the Earth and man were not really at the center of the universe as church dogma taught.

After their hikes through forests and scrambles up rocky cliffs, they could talk of Charles Darwin who through observation and sharp logic made the idea of a single, all-encompassing, unchanging Biblical Week of Creation untenable for any thinking person. It was going to be a joy to begin to share with his son his passion for this world of nature.

Joseph also hoped that their shared experience camping in the canyon would counter what he feared, or at least suspected, was Victor's mother's corrosive characterization of him - campfire conversations are a great antidote for what was poisoned during the divorce.

They continue up the state highway with Joseph giving more thought to his son's natural history lessons than to navigation. Maneuvering around the curve at about ten miles per hour above the recommended speed, he wasn't sure if he'd just seen a sign. "Victor did that last sign say 'Emmaus, 12 miles' ahead?"

"I don't know, maybe it did."

"Damn it. I know I don't want to end up on the road to Emmaus. We might have missed our turn-off back there somewhere."

He turned to Victor, "Pull out the highway map, I can't trust GPS; I'll need to look at the map once I find a place to pull over." The two-lane highway snaked between forested hills and limestone cliffs, not leaving enough of a shoulder to make a safe U-turn. There was not much traffic, but it would be imprudent to try and turn around and risk being broadsided by some hillbilly pickup truck flying around one of these curves. He slowed down to the speed limit and began looking for a turn out, passing a road sign indicating there would be an intersection with a county road up ahead.

At the intersection was a small graveled parking lot for a humble, rectangular building backed off the highway and set into the wooded hillside. The building was utilitarian in its construction and had as its only architectural adornments, a set of weathered double doors that opened onto a front porch, and above the porch roof was a 6-foot oblong wooden box topped by a cross, poorly mimicking a steeple. Hanging over the double doors was a sign made with gold-tinted aluminum letters tacked onto a plywood board painted with a deep red:

Joseph slowed and turned left into the parking lot and stopped the Jeep, asking Victor to hand him the road map. After a moment Joseph realized that the turn he needed to take was back in Loftenburg. They were headed in the wrong direction.

Joseph finished looking at the road atlas, closed the cover and handed it back to Victor, sarcastically commenting that 'The' temple of truth and grace was not even on the map, emphasizing the word 'THEE'. "You'd think that if this is the spot where 'The Truth' was truly located; shouldn't you put that on the map for everyone to find? All these fools looking to find the truth and here we just happen to stumble upon it right at this intersection." Victor saw his dad chuckle and shake his head, "I'll be damned, Eureka! We found The Truth."

Joseph was about to retrace their route back to the missed turn, when he saw the portable sign sitting in the highway right-of-way. It was one of those plastic marquees that businesses put on the side of the road and arrange moveable letters to advertise 'Today's Special.' The marquee in front of The Temple of Truth and Grace sat about three feet above the gravel on a set of iron legs that were chained to a steel stake driven into the ground.

The marquee proclaimed in black letters arranged on a sun-bleached yellow background the coming Sunday sermon:

Joseph grinned his best mischievous grin and turned to Victor and said, "You want to have a little fun?"

Victor felt uneasy about what his dad was proposing, and mumbled, "Yeah, why don't you go and have a little fun."

With that, Joseph stepped out of the driver's seat, listened for oncoming traffic and looked furtively around and then walked over to the marquee. Taking another glance over his shoulder, he moved the last two words next to each other, changing the phrase 'NOW HERE' to 'NOWHERE'.

He chuckled audibly and took a few steps back to admire his prank, imagining the consternation of the church-goers when they discovered their preached was going to sermonize on their absent God. Now it really is the Temple of Truth he thought smugly to himself. Basking in his self-congratulatory cleverness, he admired the edgy transformation he had wrought by a simple flick of the wrist.

He was about to get back in the Jeep, when another inspired anagram came to mind. Debating as to whether he should resist further transformation and leave the defiant statement of an atheist in front of the church, or whether he should leave behind a more complex, yet less biting, anagram. He had to mess with success. He high-stepped in an exaggerated tip-toeing motion back to the marquee and switched a few more letters so the coming sermon was retitled to:

Well pleased with his anagram play, Victor's dad hopped back into the Jeep and as he buckled himself in, he turned to his son and asked, "What do you think about our clever little prank?"

Victor turned to his father and with a strong but emotionally flat voice, "I just don't think people should mess up other people's things."

"Well, you have to admit the next sermon sounds pretty funny. Besides, we didn't break or steal anything, and the preacher at this Temple of Truth and Grace can easily put his letters back the way he wants them. I think the world would be a lot better off if these religious people would learn to take a joke, you know."

Victor dropped his head, looking at his toes as he finished his thought, "Well, I just think it's their place and you should respect people's property and ideas, especially at a church."

His dad reached across and put his hand on Victor's shoulder, "Look at it this way; they put their ideas on a cheap plastic sign right on a public highway forcing everybody to see their message, whether people driving by want to see their ideas or not. It's only fair that they also hear another opinion, such as mine. So long as they are using public space to preach their backward worldview. It's only natural that they should expect a counter argument now and again." Having made his point, somewhat eloquently he thought, he ended the discussion about what Victor thought of 'our prank' by changing the subject.

"How about we go look for brunch back in Loftenburg? Your mother said you didn't eat any breakfast today. We wouldn't want it getting back to her that Dad didn't feed his favorite son."

Putting the Jeep into gear, he pulled back on to the highway, checking in his rearview mirror he noticed that he had only changed one side of the sign, the east-bound traffic would see the original sermon title, only the west-bound cars would be in on his joke. For his closing statement, he added, "You know Victor, I once worked with a guy who was a dyslexic agnostic, and he would stay up at nights wondering if there really is a Dog."

Joseph mused, "Maybe he could use a sermon from The Temple of Truth about dogs, like this Sunday's message, "HERE! I OWN YOUR DOGS." He laughed at his own joke as he accelerated back the way they had come.

Stopping for the red traffic light in Loftenburg, Joseph noticed the highway sign indicating he needed to make a right turn at the next intersection to get back on the route he originally missed. "These imbecilic country bumpkins, they intentionally hid this sign showing us where to turn when we came in from the other direction. It's only after we make a U-turn that this road is properly shown. The local yocals in these kinds of towns do it on purpose, confusing outsiders in order to get people to drive all the way through town, generating more tourist dollars and an opportunity for the crooked sheriff to write trumped-up tickets, picking the pockets of non-locals who're pulled over for no reason."

Once he was confident they were going in the right direction, Joseph instructed, "You look for a place to eat while I watch the brake lights of these hillbilly drivers who never use their turn signals."

Victor stretched out his arm and pointed to a place on the left, "There's a place that looks OK."

His dad looked to where Victor was pointing and agreed with him, "They've got a lot of cars parked there -- that's a good sign. Besides, we are about to run out of sidewalk in this podunk town and any dining options with it. So! For brunch, it will be Gracie's True Grits Café."

They stepped into the small entryway where everybody was obliged to extinguish their cigarettes before entering the dining part of the café. Joseph pushed open the second glass door, past the acrid smell of stale smokes. Inside, the diner smelled of black coffee and the kind of maple syrup you buy in 5 gallon plastic jars. It smelled like it should. Joseph held up the peace sign, indicating to Mary that he wanted a table for two.

She directed them to a booth along the far wall and dished a couple of tattered menus at them as they sat on the cracked red vinyl seat cushions and placed their elbows on the blue checkered plastic table covering. "What can I get you boys to drink?"