Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction by Grif Stockley Page A

formally, “Mr. Page, would you like to wash up before supper?”
    I can’t resist smiling at this kid and then remember what it is about him that is so unnerving. The child is being raised the way I was thirty-five years ago in the Delta. Form was substance, and substance form, and God pity the white middle-class child who didn’t intuitively understand that.
    “Show me the way. Trey,” I say, but turn to Chet.
    “Where were you raised?” I ask, guessing his answer.
    “Helena,” he says, pushing himself up from the chair.
    “About a mile from the bridge.”
    The bridge that leads to Mississippi, he doesn’t have to say. I nod.
    “I’m from Bear Creek.”
    “I figured you had to be from over there, too, with that accent,” he says, the barest hint of a smile on his face. We’re practically brothers. Trey leads me through the kitchen past his mother setting the table and down a hall whose walls are covered with photographs. I pause and look at what has to be a picture of Chet in a Little League uniform. He is holding a bat in a kind of corkscrew stance that reminds me of Stan Musial.
    “That could be you,” I say.
    “Yes, sir,” Trey says, not missing a beat.
    “You want to see the glove my dad played with?”
    “Sure,” I say. We pass the bathroom, which has been temporarily forgotten, and he leads me through a door at the end of the hall on the right. I haven’t been in a boy’s bedroom in years, but they haven’t changed much except for the video equipment. Trey goes to a closet and pulls out a glove whose leather is so dry and cracked it is almost painful to the touch.
    “Dad played third base,” Trey informs me as he hands me the glove to try on.
    “Did you know that Brooks Robinson was from Arkansas? My dad says he was the best ever.”
    I cram my fingers into his glove, remembering my days as a ten-year-old shortstop for Paul Benham Insurance The first ball ever hit to me went between my legs. Every time we lost a game I cried afterward.
    Bracken probably went home and drove his fist through a wall.
    “He was incredible, all right.”
    “Trey!” his mother calls.
    I slip the glove off and hand it back to him. Carefully, he lays it back in the closet. One way or another this kid will remember his dad. And his memories will be a lot different than most of ours.
    Bracken says the blessing before the meal, but his wife and child do the talking. With the stew, Wynona serves biscuits and salad, and I eat until I’m bloated. As usual, I talk about Sarah and the travails of raising a teenage daughter who attracts boys by merely clearing her throat. It hits me that after a decent interval Wynona will be looking for another mate, and I wonder if Bracken feels bad when he thinks about her in the arms of another man. He seems content to listen, allowing his wife and son to carry the conversation. As I talk and am drawn out by Wynona (she titters sympathetically at my tales of paternal incompetence), I notice that Bracken is, in fact, content, period. Without a shred of self-pity, his homely face, reminding me, now I realize, of a young Ross Perot, is hoarding memories of his wife and son for the rough times ahead.
    “I would have had Chet invite Sarah,” Wynona says, “if I had known about her.”
    “That’s okay,” I say, wondering what Sarah would have made of this family, “she’s studying for a math test.”
    Actually, it is only a quiz, but she rarely begins to settle down before ten. She is on the phone, I would be willing to bet. Ever the little gentleman. Trey chews with his mouth closed and does not grab for food not within his reach. His table manners are better than my own. He asks, “Do you like being a lawyer as much as my dad?”
    I chew, and signal with my hand that I will answer after I have swallowed. I have never thought one way or another whether Bracken enjoys his profession. With his success, how could he not? On the surface, he seems too obsessed, too relentless to be