Previously, the Bible club members saved the school from catastrophe, greeting every student as they entered the school that fateful May 15th.

Though the handguns had been replaced, they remained available. T.J. Adams would amend the wrong of May 15. He had a fresh target in mind.

+++

James Pentecost, grateful for his uncle’s patience, finally managed to connect more than two words on his fifth attempt. The AR15 he’d thrust into his uncle’s arms at the front door lay on the floor beside James Earl Pentecost, James’ namesake uncle. Earl was more of a father to James’ dad, Dennis, than the man who’d sired them and left to join the Army without as much as a ‘How do you do.’ Earl, the elder by only 18 months, led James’ father through to adolescence, when their mother finally remarried. Their birth father never returned from the war, believed to have perished at Guadalcanal.

Noticing the rifle’s distracting claim on James’ attention, Earl interrupted, “Let me just put this away.” His gentle smile and non-confrontational manner eased James’ spirit. He reflectively sighed, taking several deep breaths, unaware he’d been holding his breath, attempting to speak from the uppermost of his diaphragm. “Take your time, Son,” Earl said, casually easing back into a chair beside James, and not the seat of authority behind the desk at the head of the room.

James Pentecost, Earl’s devoted and trusted nephew had stolen Earl’s AR15 and its 60 round drum magazine with every intention of killing 60 or more fellow students at Mulberry River High. To his mind his perfect life was destroyed by careless words and reckless dumping by his life-long love. The girl who would be the queen of every boy’s dreams suddenly and unexpectedly dropped him. In James’ imagination his girlfriend was planning to date every man in her new school, it being filled with men taller, stronger, smarter, funnier, and better looking than himself. The concept of playing the field probably wasn’t even her own, but her mother’s, interested in her daughter’s fullest college experience, as well as her learning whether or not the youthful cling to her childhood sweetheart was true. James’ heart exploded, filling the voided cavity with poisonous bile, the flumes of the havoc saturating his skull. It didn’t help that his own mother had emotionally married the girl, accepting the traitorous witch as her daughter-in-law before either child had even reached puberty. So went the story, as James saw things.

Were Amy questioned, she might make note of the many hints she’d dropped during their senior year: about campus safety required pairing up, about the many co-ed activities, about not wanting to miss out on parties or events just because James was a million miles away doing, or at least wanting to do, the same things at his college. Amy would say that her intent wasn’t a break-up at all, but merely a change to a more open relationship, as opposed to the exclusive-of-all-others that carried them through high school.

James watched as his deliciously cute girlfriend flowered into the beautiful dream of every boy in school. Marilyn Monroe would have been vying for second place as Home Coming Queen against his Amy. Amy had been planning this breakup from the first day of High School, he’d convinced himself, allowing his disturbed mind to dive feverishly into despair’s depths. Confusion and embarrassment quickly gave way to despondency and depression. He felt diminished, reduced to waste, and exposed as an inadequate failure. He couldn’t stand the idea of being either pitied or scorned as the would-be suitor. He would not allow for either.

Certain Amy had already fed every gossiping telephone chain in school the news of his being skewered; he couldn’t look anyone in the face. There was no one he could talk to – most definitely not his mother who doted on the girl, or his father who probably fantasized her. He doubted he could speak of the affair in any case … not without breaking down into a slobbering child. He chose anger as depravity’s voice.

Now, brought to his senses, awakened to what he’d been prepared to do, he was mortified.

“Uncle Earl, I …” James choked up, his heart where his Adam’s apple was supposed to be. His eyes glazed over with tears that began to stream down his face. Earl gave him both time and space, knowing that the moment was James’, his growing from child to man, his opportunity to mature into responsibility. “I almost destroyed our family, Uncle Earl.” James’ gutted out his confession, his voice a gravelly, guttural pitch, the best he could muster. Somewhat calmed, he continued. “I’m more sorry than I could ever say. I stoled your gun. I was gonna …” James began, but stifled an emotion-wrought sob. “I was going to use it in school.”

Involuntarily, Earl choked back a sob of his own. Still, he allowed James his declaration. He nodded to his nephew. “Do you want to talk about it? What brought you to it?” Knowing that the boy did, his words reflected more the question of whether James could talk about his trauma.

“I don’t know what got a hold of me, Uncle Earl.”

Knowing that it wasn’t an attempt to transfer the guilt to some other entity, nor a failure to accept personal responsibility, Earl withheld judgment.

“Amy broke up with me and I just, I don’t even know. I just couldn’t think. I couldn’t feel anything. Mom, she … I don’t know what happened.”

After a moment, giving James the time he needed and sensing that the boy required some nudging, Earl asked, “What turned you around?”

“That’s it, Uncle. I don’t even know. I went to school with the gun in my camping pack. In my mind I was not even going to school; I was staying home. But I saw myself just goin’. Every step up the walk and up the steps I fought to stop and go back, but … I don’t know. Don’t laugh, but it was like even after Amy told me to stop, my hand kept trying to reach under her shirt. Like I couldn’t stop it.”

Earl managed to squelch his response, keeping a straight face in front an exact understanding of involuntary responses. His silence begged James to continue, letting him talk out his feelings. And allowing himself time to think through his reaction.

“I went into the building like always, except without Amy. I didn’t see anybody’s faces. They were all just … kinda like figures, walkin’ to class. Then there was somebody in front of me, in my way. She said something or other to me, I don’t even know what. She wasn’t even pretty, not like Amy, but… I don’t know… she glowed. You know what I mean? Her eyes saw me. She saw me. You know what I mean, Uncle?”

Earl didn’t for sure, but felt that the girl’s gaze somehow pierced James’ soul. He nodded understanding.

“Anyway, somehow she made me understand what it was that I was about to do, really understand. She made me think that I was not the person I’d become, that I was, I don’t know, kinda worth something.” James quickly followed up the thought, not wanting his uncle to misunderstand. “I know I’m not. I know that what I was going to do would have proven that, but she …” James bowed his head, signaling an end.

After a moment, Earl spoke. “James, I won’t pretend that everything is fine now that you … woke up. But thank you. Thank you for waking up in time. Thank God for that girl.” Earl wasn’t a religious man. He hadn’t gone to church since adolescence. The expression merely seemed the thing to say. “And thank you for coming to me. I’m honored and humbled. And I deeply respect your courage. You could have just snuck the rifle back and no one would have known.

“You know that we’re going to have to talk with your dad. First, you’ll go take your finals with as clear a mind as you can. Put this aside for the moment. When are finals over?” he asked.

James told him.

“Okay, Friday morning you and I and your dad will go hike Mulberry Park Trail. I’ll tell your dad he has to take off work. It’s supposed to rain, but we’ll go anyway. When we get to the river overlook, we’ll go to the pavilion and sit down to talk and decide where to go from here. I won’t tell him anything but that it’s important. Might tell him it’s life or death.” Earl’s eyes gave away a smile.

Standing simultaneously, James fell into Earl’s embrace, his tears soaking Earl’s shirt, James whispered his heart-felt gratitude as he nearly bolted from the room. Fast behind him, without wanting to appear to be in a chase, Earl’s words caught James at the front door, “You’ll be alright, Son. You’re a man now. You’ll act like one.”

James turned to his uncle and forced a smile of agreement.

Earl’s wife looked from his eyes to his stained shirt and back, blinking back tears of her own. “It was bad?”

“Yes,” was all Earl allowed himself for the moment, hugging his wife with all the love and support he could draw. “It was gonna be bad.”

+++

“James, I haven’t told your dad anything except what I told you that I would. He needs to hear it from you.”

Seated at a picnic table, none of them cared that a hand-holding couple sought cover from the drizzling rain at the other end of the pavilion. The three men at the downhill side were not there to experience the overlook sights.

“Dad, I …” After a hesitating start, James released the emotions he’d held in check at his uncle’s. Weeping uncontrollably, James fell sideways to his father’s shoulder.

Dennis, his mouth agape, studied his brother across the table for explanation. Earl merely nodded toward James. “Go ahead, James, it’s time to tell him. Don’t hold anything back.”

The young couple quietly continued their hand-in-hand stroll, somewhat more briskly than the first half of their hike.

“Son, we can’t just go on like nothin’ happened.” James’ father Dennis bore into James’ eyes.

Earl produced a business card from his shirt pocket, handing it to his brother.

Recognizing the nature of the card, Dennis continued. “You’re going to have to meet with …” He read the card more closely. “Dr. Kilpatrick.”

James nodded assent. “Dad, I don’t want to sound, I don’t know, all churchy, or nothin’, but can we? Can we all, you, me, and Mom … go to church Sunday? I think that tall girl, I remember a little more all the time, I think she said something that …”

“Sure, Son. I’ve seen people in and out of the one right down the road from the house wearing blue jeans … we’d feel comfortable there – unless you want to go somewhere else.”

James shook his head.

“James, you know I trust you,” Earl said. And, well, it’s nothing but good horse sense, but I’ve changed the code and removed the house key from the hide.”

James understood, understanding that he had actually broken the bond of trust.

“Well, let’s all get soaking wet,” Earl suggested as he stood.