Chapter 21

Dwayne Hartman

Dwayne Hartman awoke from a nightmare, sweeping his blankets to the other side of the room. He lay still once he realized that he had awoken; it had all been a dream. A dark dream, however. A nightmare. He seldom had those anymore. But it had not been a nightmare of Vietnam, or of receiving the injury that had crippled him. It had been, he was sure, a spiritual nightmare, an attack by the forces of darkness.

He heard thunder as he lay sweating and panting on his bed. It sounded close, though he had seen no flash of lightning. It sounded several times, then was silent. Thunder always reminded him of God. It reminded him of the words written on his hands, and the vision he had seen all those years ago. Thunder, to Dwayne Hartman, was a holy thing. But this sound he had just heard…

Dwayne Hartman knew with sudden certitude that it had not been thunder at all.

He prayed out loud as he hauled himself out of bed and hastily dressed himself. He prayed for Isaac, because for some reason that seemed like the right thing to do. He prayed for the town of Pikeston, because the darkness outside seemed too dark, the silence too great.

A sense of evil pressed in upon Dwayne as he fastened his suspenders, shouldered his heavy military jacket, and seized his twin walking canes.

He emerged into the cold dark midnight, not knowing where he went or why, but knowing that he had to go. He walked, because something within urged him not to drive. Snow and ice dusted the sidewalk in patches, but he stepped forward boldly, steadying himself with his two canes.

He prayed as he walked: for Isaac, for the town, for the children of the town, for his pastor, for his country, and for anything and anyone else that came to mind. This list came to an end after a few blocks and he switched to softly muttered hymns, halfway between whispered poetry and incomprehensible growls.

He wandered aimlessly beneath the scattered streetlights, hardly noticing the commotion on Main Street when he crossed a few blocks down. Through light and shadow, darkness and snow and cold, beneath a partly starry sky to which his misted breath danced with each exhalation, he walked and prayed and sang. His knuckles shone white in the darkness as his numb hands gripped the two wooden canes.

He stopped, not knowing why, and saw that he had stopped in front of the Stocker house, where Isaac lived. He saw a light on in Isaac’s window. What was that boy doing up so late? He had school in the morning.

Dwayne offered a final prayer for Isaac. It had been a nice walk, but he was cold. He didn’t even bring a flask. He did have cigarettes, though. He leaned his canes and himself against a tree in front of the Stocker house and lit one up. His legs were tired, but he’d make it home all right. After this cigarette.

He spotted another figure on the sidewalk, a few houses down. It approached slowly, and Dwayne heard hard-heeled boots clicking on the cold cement. He also heard police sirens in the distance. Had he been hearing those the whole time, and not noticed until now? His hearing wasn’t what it used to be.

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Dwayne watched as the dark figure approached. It slowed down and stopped just before it entered the part of the sidewalk in front of the Stocker house. Something about the figure disturbed Dwayne Hartman. It moved strangely. It didn’t speak a greeting. It was dark—too dark, although the nearest streetlight was down at the end of the block. And everything around it was dark.

Dwayne listened very closely. He closed his eyes, and listened.

In the peace and cold and black night there beneath the glow of Isaac’s lit window, Dwayne Hartman heard the voice of God. It came not like thunder, but like the soft breathing of the clear air through the tree branches above.

He opened his eyes, flicked the cigarette into the snow, and ground it out with one foot as he took hold of his canes. He staggered a bit at first, from stiffness and cold, but he walked out toward the newcomer.

The dark figure took a step back from Dwayne Hartman, and flinched when he spoke. “You are not welcome here,” Dwayne said.

Dwayne Hartman took his right cane, and with it drew a line across the dusting of snow on the sidewalk. He tapped it for emphasis when he had finished. “This is holy ground.”

He and the dark figure stood there for a minute, or an hour, or a second, gazing at each other across the line drawn in the snow.

Dwayne, not knowing what else to do, did what he always did when he did not know what else to do. He sang. Softly, of course, because he didn’t want to wake anyone up. He sang “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.” It carried as little more than a scratchy grumble through the night air.

The Dark Figure turned and faded away into the night, the clacking of its bootheels vanishing to nothing.

Dwayne stayed for another minute, until he felt that the darkness had left. He kept singing as he turned about and proceeded back to his house. He shivered with cold, and flexed his fingers around the heads of the canes. He hummed hymns as he went.

Dwayne Hartman had once driven with a box of tools to a remote stretch of highway he seldom traveled. There he had found an unfamiliar green van, broken down and abandoned on the roadside. He had spent a few hours repairing it, and then returned home. Another rainy afternoon, years ago, Dwayne Hartman had lain flowers on the grave of someone he had never heard of. He had once penned a heartfelt letter of encouragement and left it on top of an ATM machine in a distant city.

These things happened. He never knew why. He never discovered the results of these efforts. He simply listened, and acted. Maybe he was saving lives; maybe he was merely giving someone hope on a bad day. It didn’t matter. Obedience mattered.

When he got home, Dwayne Hartman spent a half hour praying for Isaac, then another half hour praying for the person he had seen in the midst of that darkness. A plaque above his bedstand bore the words of a poet:

You shall love your crooked neighbor

With your crooked heart.