This horrible year, this year of grace and sorrow

Growing up, I read with horrified fascination accounts of the Nazis and the Holocaust, and I used to wonder: How would I have responded to those events? Whose side would I have been on? Would I have tried, like so many courageous souls, to help the Jewish people being persecuted? Would I have gone along with the Nazis?

I read about life behind the Iron Curtain, life in the Gulag Archipelago, life under the murderous Stalin and crushing totalitarianism. I read about courageous Catholics and others who risked their lives to practice their faith. Would I have been one of them? What sort of person would I have been? What would my values have been?

I read about Jim Crow laws in the deep South, about "whites only" drinking fountains and swimming pools, about lynchings and cross burnings and the KKK, about "separate but equal." Whose side would I have been on? What would I have done, as a white man, had I known my white neighbor was a member of the Klan?

I read about the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, about the Black Death sweeping through Europe and leaving millions of dead bodies in its wake, about Catholics and Protestants fighting and killing each other, about heated, angry, deadly religious disputes over doctrine and practice. How would I have navigated such circumstances?

I read about the Salem Witch Trials, the treatment of Native Americans, the practice of slavery, world wars, the Civil Rights era, the assassination of Martin Luther King and so many others ...

I suppose I wasn't the only child to wonder what it would have been like to live through perilous, difficult times, times of war, times of strife, times of sorrow, pain and despair.

And now, this year: this annus horribilis, this year of horrors, this year of sorrow, of unrest, of anger, of disease, of fear -- how am I responding to this horrible year of 2020?

A pandemic rages from sea to shining sea in this country and 130,000 souls have perished with countless others getting sick and fighting for their lives.

Economic ruin lurks in the shadows with millions having lost their jobs and many businesses closing their doors.

Racial tensions are high, provoked by far too many instances of police brutality and an addiction to racism that we can't seem to shake.

Leadership is chaotic, at best, and downright deadly, at worst. We have come to the realization that we are on our own and those we have elected to guide us through such crises are missing in action.

As a country, we've taken one body blow after the next this year.

What is my response?

How do I help, rather than get in the way?

Who are the vulnerable people in my life, and have I reached out to them?

If I walk into a store or a gas station, and no one else is wearing a mask, should I still wear my mask? Should I do the right thing even when no one does?

When I know my black brothers and sisters are hurting, do I stand with them? Do I march with them? Do I challenge the racism that is so ingrained in American life?

This has been a year of sorrow, but also a year of grace. I've been presented with opportunities to answer some of these questions that have always haunted me.

Adversity shows us who we really are. Einstein said "Adversity introduces a man to himself."

This year sucks, yes. But it has also provided -- and will continue to provide -- endless opportunities for growth and grace.

If ever there was a time to pray for the world we live in, this is that time.

If ever there was a time to reach out to neighbors and friends, to those who are vulnerable, those who might need an errand run or someone to drive them to a doctor visit, this is that time.

If ever there was a time to put self aside, and think of others, and the needs of others, and the well being of others, this is that time.

This is a year for the history books, a year we will be talking about for a long, long time.

What will they say about my response?

What will they say about yours?

If It Bleeds

“Your story on the homeless man down by the railroad tracks has our numbers up,” granddad said as he lit his pipe with one of his many gold lighters and smiled at me. “Nice to know that fancy education of yours is paying off! Of course, in my day you didn’t need no education to be a reporter, but I guess things is different now.”

Charles Moorehead, aging editor and owner of the weekly Port Moss Post, sucked on his pipe and blew out a satisfied cloud of smoke. “Our numbers are good,” he added, “but they’d be better if we had a really good story.”

He gave me a searching look.

“You’re the third generation of this family to work at the Post,” he went on. “It’s a family business. People rely on us, you know. Not much has been happening lately, but sometimes you just have to make things happen. Don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” he announced, getting to his feet.

I picked up my reporter’s notebook.

“You won’t be needing that,” he said with a smile.

We drove to the railroad yard.

Joe Floyd was the homeless man we had featured in the newspaper. I had spent a lot of time talking to him. Now that the piece had been written, I’d had a feeling my grandfather would want to “see” him.

Among other things, my grandfather was predictable.

“You realize everything we have depends on the newspaper, don’t you?” he asked. “That’s where your father messed up. He forgot that. But the newspaper pays the bills. It paid for your education. It gives us standing in the community - it’s our bread and butter. And the more papers we sell, the more bread and butter we get to put in our pockets. And it’s a bit of a strain, trying to pay your salary and pay mine too, things being the way they are these days. It’s not exactly rich pickings in these parts. And you know if we can’t get the numbers up, I may have to move you to part time.”

“I know,” I said dutifully.

“And we don’t want that,” he said.

No, we most certainly did not.

What we wanted -- well, what I wanted -- was for granddad to retire, and for me to move to the big office with the big desk and the big title. After all, granddad was getting sloppy in his old age and what the newspaper needed most was fresh blood and new ideas. Not to mention an editor who had a basic grasp of grammar.

We found Joe sitting in a camp chair and minding his own business. Granddad went up behind him, pulled a wire out of his coat pocket, and before I could say anything, he had strung it around Joe’s neck and choked him to death while the poor man jiggered about like a fish on a hook.

I had expected something with more finesse.

I sighed.

I had one of granddad’s gold lighters in a plastic bag. While he waited for Joe to stop jerking about, I removed this bag from my jacket pocket and let the lighter fall onto the ground. I had been very careful not to get any of my prints on it.

When granddad was finished, he turned back to me, panting from the exertion. “When you’ve got a dead body on the front page … it’ll be good for a month or two of headlines. And the editorials will write themselves. You’ll see.”

He wiped his hands on his pants as if trying to get rid of the feel of death.

“Now you call the chief and tell him you came to see Joe so you could show him the newspaper,” he ordered. “You tell him you found him like this. And don’t be getting squeamish like your dad. Look what that got him! This poor homeless sucker’s gonna help us pay the bills, and that’s how the world works. You understanding me, boy?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “It’s just that Joe was a nice guy.”

“Nice?” Granddad spat on the ground. “What does nice get you? Does it pay the bills? Nice! A crock of crap, you ask me. Sometimes, you want something, you take it. That’s what I know.”

Granddad left on foot -- his house was only a mile or so away through the woods. But of course he knew that, which was doubtless one of the reasons he told me to interview Joe in the first place.

I fished out my cell phone and called Hoyt Hood, the Port Moss chief of police.

“Chief?” I said when he answered, “It’s Henry Moorehead from the newspaper. I’m out on the railroad yard. I came out here to visit Joe -- I wanted to show him the newspaper with that story we did on him. But … well, I think you’d better get out here. He’s dead.”

The chief made me promise I would remain with the body until he could get there.

I said I would.

We didn’t put a picture of Joe’s dead body on the front page in the following week’s edition of the newspaper, but we did use photographs of the scene: the chair in which he was strangled; the campfire at which he had sat; his various belongings in sad plastic bags. In light of his violent end, there was a poignant quality to these still life scenes. We wrote about an unknown killer stalking homeless people in small towns. We talked about how defenceless they were, at the mercy of the elements. We wrung our hands about how Joe might have been targeted because of our own profile piece. We encouraged the public to come forward with information they might have about this sad, terrible business.

The papers flew off the shelves.

New subscriptions poured in.

Granddad was pleased -- until Chief Hood showed up at the newspaper office with two of his deputies and an arrest warrant.

My grandfather had a thing about gold lighters. If you wanted to get in good with the old man, offering him a personally inscribed gold-plated lighter was the way to go. Over the years, he had collected about a dozen in his role as editor of the local newspaper.

It took the chief a while, but I knew he would eventually put two and two together and start to wonder why one of granddad’s lighters had been dropped close to Joe’s dead body.

The chief had also received an anonymous call placing granddad at the train yard early on the morning of the murder. I had placed the call myself. Chief Hood didn’t have a whole lot of butter on his biscuits, if you know what I mean, and I wanted to make sure he got the point.

He did.

“He was dead when we got there!” granddad thundered in a self-righteous fury as the chief and his deputies put him under arrest. “Henry saw him -- he was there too! Tell him, Henry!”

Granddad looked to me for reassurance.

“Granddad, you know I was alone when I found him,” I said. “I didn’t see you till later when I got to the office to write up the story. You remember how I called and told you about it and you told me to get my butt to the office?”

Granddad’s lips moved as if he wanted to say something.

There was a desperate look in his eyes.

“Of course, we went out there later so we could take some more pictures,” I added, giving him an out, “but that was late in the afternoon and they had already taken Joe away.”

“We found the lighter that morning,” Chief Hood pointed out. “He didn’t drop it there later.”

“I was with Henry the whole day,” Granddad argued. “Tell them, Henry!”

“Granddad, I know you’re forgetful sometimes,” I said. “You’re getting things confused.”

A look of murderous hate filled the old man’s eyes.

The silence brought about his departure was deep and welcome. I picked up the photo of my father from my desk and walked into granddad’s office.

My office, I thought.

I put daddy’s photo on the desk and sat down in the expensive leather chair and picked up the phone. I called Parchman and asked to speak my father, who was incarcerated there.

“You were right,” I said.

“About what?” daddy asked.

“About doing my homework. You told me always to do my homework around granddad or he would get the best of me, like he did you. So I took your advice. And it took me a while, but I got him back.”

“Good,” daddy said.

He did not need me to explain.

“I guess you’re the editor now,” he added with pride.

I smiled.

(C) 2019 by Nick Wilgus