CHANGE OF LIFE - Chapter 18

    Saturday Willard went with Mr. Sedlof to El Dorado where they were going to work on a Habitat for Humanity house. Willard wore his work clothes and brought his paint brushes and some rags. The house they were going to be helping with was almost completed. It needed painting inside and outside.

After painting his own house, Willard felt competent to do the various painting jobs they assigned him. It was an ideal situation for when you don’t know the other people. You can keep busy working and maybe make friends with whomever is working alongside of you. Mr. Sedlof was a real klutz at painting. They kept him busy with “go fer” duties.

While Willard was painting this new house, an idea struck him. Those boys he arrested both lived in houses that looked pretty run down. What if he kept them busy this summer fixing up their homes?

When he and Mr. Sedlof returned to Prattsville that evening, he hurriedly changed his clothes and drove over to the street where the boys lived. Both houses had clapboard exteriors that had not been painted in years. The gutters were sagging. This is déjà vu, he thought.

He felt like celebrating and went to the Acropolis Café for a gyro plate.

“How’s that crazy guy, Sergeant O’Reilly?”

“I don’t know. We took him to the hospital.”

The word “hospital” reminded him of Corporal Butcher. After he ate, he went to the hospital and asked about Corporal Butcher. He was told that he was now in Rehab which was in another building. The Rehab unit was stricter about visiting, but they made an exception since Willard is a police officer.

Corporal Butcher was delighted to see Willard. Willard told him that he had been off the job himself for two weeks, but that he was back to work now.

“Between my wife leaving me and then that incident we were involved in, my nerves were shot to pieces.”  He told the Corporal about painting his house and then taking a trip back to Baltimore where he grew up. “How are things going for you?”

The trooper told him that the break in his leg had healed better than the doctor expected. With some therapy the doctor said that he would release him to go back to work.

“Hey, that is really great news. Listen, since you are a grass widower like myself, why don’t you come over to my house some evening. We can watch a game on television and tell “war stories” during the commercials.”

“That sounds great, and I’ll do that. But I’m not a “grass widower” any more. When my wife got back to her parents’ home, her mother really raised holy thunder with her, asked her what she thought she was promising when she said “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.”  She sent her back here begging me to forgive her. I asked her to forgive me and I am going to do everything I can to make our marriage work.”

“Corporal Butcher, I am going to church tomorrow and I will have a lot to thank God for.”

They shook hands and he left.

At home there were dishes to wash and clothes to hang up. There was a lot of washing to do. He might take it to Comet Laundry and Dry Cleaning on his way to work on Monday. He had to find some dress clothes to wear to church tomorrow. He might have to polish a pair of shoes.

On Sunday he was eager to go to church. The church in Baltimore was Methodist so he decided to go to the Methodist church. The service in Baltimore had opened his eyes to a void in his life or maybe inner life. He didn’t know anything about God, but he wanted to know about Him. He had never prayed or given thanks to God before, now he had things that he needed to pray about, he had so many things to give thanks for, but he didn’t know how.

Was it a coincidence or was God listening to his thoughts? That morning in the Methodist church in Prattsville the minister preached on the text, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  The service was like food for his hungry spirit. Outside, his elation came crashing to the ground. One of the other policemen was standing outside. He had already lit a cigarette.

“Hi Willard, did you come to church to find a replacement for Dolores?”  Some of the other men around him snickered. Willard would have liked to punch the jerk in the nose. People like him kept a lot of people from ever  going back to church after their first visit!  Well, it wasn’t going to keep him away. He had found a fountain of water to quench his thirsty spirit. He would come back to quench his thirst again and again.

He saw in the bulletin that it was the Fourth of July. He remembered  reading in the newspaper that there would be fireworks at Husted Lake. Why not take those boys and their mothers out to see the fireworks?

He drove over to the street where they lived. He went to Mrs. Mulcahey’s house first. He knocked at the door and she answered,

“Mrs. Mulcahey, I was wondering if you and your son and Ms. Simpson and her son would like to go to the fireworks display at Lake Husted. It is free. Just take a blanket and cushion or a folding chair. I’ll be glad to take you if you would like to go.”

“Have you asked Ms. Simpson?”

“No, I came to you first.”

“Let me talk to her and I’ll call and let you know. Give me your phone number.”

Willard went home and looked in the refrigerator and the pantry for a meal he could fix. After eating and washing the dishes from breakfast and lunch, he went into the living room. He wanted to look up that passage, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  He wondered if they had a Bible. He went to the spare room and there he found a Bible. It had Dolores’ name inside but it did not appear to have been used very much. He took it down to the living room. He eventually was able to find the verse, using the reference in the bulletin.

Mrs. Mulcahey called about 4:00 PM

“Officer O’Reilly we would like to go to the fireworks. Neither one of us have seen fireworks in years except on television and neither of the boys have ever seen fireworks. What should we bring?  We have some folding lawn chairs, would you have room for those?”

“Absolutely. I’ll come by for you about 6:30PM.”

That night Willard was happy to see how excited the boys were watching the fireworks display. He had brought a cooler with sodas and passed them out about halfway through the show. The excitement in the boys’ voices, “Wow, did you see that?” gave him one more thing to be thankful for.

Going home Mrs. Mulcahey said, “Officer, we don’t know how we can register our boys there at the YMCA. We have to leave for work a little after seven.”

“Tell the boys to be ready about 9:00AM.  Unless I am out on a call, I will meet them at the front door of the YMCA at that time. They can bring any papers home for you to sign and take them back the next day.”

After roll call the next day, when they were out in the patrol car, Willard told Ginger, “Unless we are on a call, I need to stop at the YMCA at 9:00AM.”

At 9:00 AM he parked the cruiser outside the main entrance to the YMCA. Trey Mulcahey and Lance Simpson were waiting outside.

“You boys wait out here until I find out what the deal is. You might have to wait until they have your mothers’ permission before you can start.”

He was glad that he had the boys wait outside. The woman at the desk threw up every obstacle under the sun – the program had already started three weeks ago, there was no more money for kids who couldn’t pay. The parents have to accompany the children to register.

“Lady, I’m draining my reserves of patience. You go find the Director of this YMCA branch and do it fast. I am on call. I might have to leave at any minute. But before I leave those two boys are going to be enrolled in this program. You can count on that.”

Mr. Howard came down the stairs from his office looking very annoyed.

“Officer, my name is Mr. Howard. I am the director of this branch of the YMCA. How can I help you?”

“Mr. Howard, there are two boys outside whose mothers are single parents. They are poor. Neither of those facts are the fault of these boys. They need supervision while their mothers are at work or they will be getting into trouble. I want them in this summertime program and the lady at the desk says it is impossible. How can you and I make this happen?”

“I can make an exception and let them into the program late. They will have to have their mothers sign a permission slip before I can let them start. I do not have any more funds for scholarships.”

“How much is the program?”

“$180 for each of the boys.”

“I’ll bring you a check before the end of this day. Give me the permission slips. I’ll give them to the boys. Their mothers will sign them tonight and the boys will be here tomorrow.  What time does it start?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“Thank you, Mr. Howard. I knew we could make this happen.”

He walked out of the building smiling, holding two permission slips in his hand.  “Get these signed, bring them back with you at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

He walked back to the car. Ginger asked,

“What was that all about?”

“Just some preventative maintenance. Let’s wait here until the boys leave.”

When the boys had started back to their homes, he pulled his checkbook out and wrote a check to the YMCA for $360. He left the car and went back into the YMCA. Smiling he handed “Ms. Impossible” the check.

“There’s the money for Trey Mulcahey and Lance Simpson.”

Back in the patrol car he drove along one of their patrol routes. He varied it every day so that a would be criminal wouldn’t be able to predict when the patrol car would go past.

“Ginger, I’ve thought a lot about that traffic stop when Corporal Butcher was hit by that truck. If we are ever in that type situation again, I think both of the patrol cars should be behind the one that is stopped. Walking toward the front of a vehicle that has been stopped puts the officer in too much danger.”

“I don’t think we should be involved in such things. We are just supposed to protect and serve the townspeople.”

“If the lieutenant didn’t think we should be involved, he wouldn’t be sharing intelligence from the Memphis Police Department. If our officers didn’t think we should be involved, that is what they would have told the dispatcher when we called in for instructions. If you wanted a safe job, being a policewoman was the wrong choice.”

“That is chauvinistic!”