In the last part, T.J., though thwarted on May 15th, remained unchanged, still hostile toward everyone. James confessed to his uncle and to his father, agreeing to counseling and getting his family to agree to go to church.

“Hey, John.”

“Hey Grace. Thanks for calling. I’ve been thinking about our Bible group ever since graduation. It doesn’t seem like it’s been a month. I tried to call you a couple times this past week.”

Grace didn’t respond immediately.

“Grace? You there?”

“Yeah,” she replied after a slight pause. “Kinda down, I guess.”

“That’s exactly when you should get with people who care about you.”

“I know. I saw you’d called. I’m just … I don’t know … bummed, I guess. How’s Kailey?”

“She’s good. We talk about every day. Look, can you get away?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. When are you thinking?”

“Now? I could pick you up in … like … fifteen minutes? Go to the mall. Get a Coke, or something?”

Reluctantly, Grace agreed to be ready for him to pick her up.

“Can I be brutal?” Grace asked. “I mean so honest that you won’t utter a word, and … and you won’t think bad of me?”

John did his best to assure her, though she clammed up, regardless.

“You ever read Jonah?” John asked.

“Well, yeah, I guess. Remember, we read the Bible through last year?”

“You probably forgot about him wishing he was dead right after saving 120,000 people. He even said as much, that he wished Nineveh had been destroyed with everybody in it.”

Grace sat upright, jerking her hair from her face with a snap of her head. Her eyes begged more.

“Remember the one about Elijah? He had a competition with Baal’s prophets, soaked and drenched his stuff three times and God lit it up anyway. Then he outran Ahab’s chariot to town.” John paused until Grace’s eyes pleaded for the rest of the story. “You guessed it. Elijah was suicidal right after that.”

“Well, I’m not exactly suicidal, just really bummed out. And I can’t explain it.” John waited out her hesitation. “I mean I don’t wish anything bad had happened that day at school, but …. Well, we don’t even know if we did any good at all.”

“We did, Grace. We did. God did through us. A gun was dropped in my church office that same day. I’m pretty sure I know where it came from. And the gothic dude asked Dr. Westman to take him home from school right after the doors opened. And I got a call after graduation saying that the school was unbombed, bomb-free. It was weird, I know. But I think it was him. And my gut tells me that there was more. And so does yours.

“Grace, what you feel is not just, just nothing. It’s real. I don’t know why. Maybe doing the miraculous is draining. I know you don’t wish there had been a shooting, or worse. If you think about it, nothing happened to take credit for preventing is the best that could happen, in a convoluted non-happening way. Nothing happened because God used us to stop it. Red lights are a nuisance, but they save lives every day – without credit or fanfare.”

“You learn to talk that way in your senior year?” Grace chided, smiling for the first time in weeks.

John laughed with her. “Why don’t you call everybody and let’s do something together? Go to the beach, or something?”

Grace agreed, promising to call with details.

“Oh, I’m gonna bring a friend, Jimmy Orr,” John said as Grace opened the Jeep Wrangler door in front of her home.

+++

The Mulberry River, with largely privately owned access, offered a gravelly beach on the side opposite town. The playground and picnic area, a community favorite summer draw for families, was patrolled often enough to be safe. The gravel gave way to sand at the river’s bank for a distance of several hundred yards along the shallow interior of the mile-long horseshoe bend. A dozen or more yards from the beach was a perpetual gravel bar, which never disappeared, but shifted with every serious flooding. Though it required a chest deep wade, it was the perfect meeting place.

Lunch finished, Kailey watched as the last of the group to eat brushed chip crumbs from his hairless chest. She challenged the group to a race to the gravel bar island, the last one aboard to be a rotten egg. Rodney and Hannah Jumper, John’s youth pastors at his church shook their heads, recognizing the baby boomer reference. Sensing the Holy Spirit’s leading, and also wishing to recognize the Jumpers’ involvement in the group’s success, John had invited them. After Rodney’s offer to bring three buckets of fried chicken and the saltiest chips they could find, John knew he’d done the right thing. The thirty-something elders allowed the group their privacy.

Barely squeezed onto the island, John looked to Jimmy Orr with as friendly a wink as ever passed between friends anywhere. “Guys, Jimmy here has something to say.”

Jimmy’s heart stopped. He’d said nothing to John about wanting to say anything. Not the first word had he said to a solitary soul about his James Bond knock-off 380. John, seeing a bicycle parked at his church the first Sunday after graduation, sought out Jimmy, breaking from his other friends in order to sit by him. They’d hung out together a couple times a week since. John didn’t pry; Jimmy didn’t offer any comment about a handgun or May 15th.

“Go ahead, Jimmy. You’re among friends.”

Everyone chuckled.

Rising at the water’s edge, Jimmy stepped into the water about a foot. Quickly losing his footing, the gravel washing from beneath his feet, both Chelsea and Justin grabbed for him, clutching his arms, not releasing until he’d steadied himself.

“My name’s Jimmy Orr. I’ve been alive for … I don’t know …” He paused in obvious calculation. “Forty-one days.”

Everyone shouted and laughed hysterically, applauding and congratulating him, knowing what he meant. Several wiped tears from their eyes.

“On May 15th, I took a semi-automatic 380 to school.” The silence became overwhelming. Jimmy’s hiccupping breath dominated even the beach noise across the water. “I was going to hurt as many people as I could, maybe even some of you.” Jimmy recounted the day, starting with John’s speech to him that fateful morning, word for word. He briefly recounted his mantra of buying someone a Coke. Nodding to the girl who’d bumped into him and almost won the Coke, but instead asked Corey about Seattle’s climate. Jimmy easily convinced them of the painful loneliness a person can have among a thousand who were not alone. Every one of them felt the sting of un-loving behavior and attitudes.

Several suggested something should be done – a new kid’s club in every school, some sort of outreach, something.

“You can’t cure everybody, everywhere,” Jimmy said, his voice raised. “You … you …”

John came to his aid. “We just have to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, not losing a single opportunity. Everywhere we go is a new mission field.”

“So,” Jimmy nearly shouted, embarrassed by his accidental volume level. “I, uh, I want to be baptized.” He looked to John.

John looked to the beach where Rodney and Hannah were somewhere, but couldn’t be quickly picked out.

“You do it, John,” Kailey said.

“Would you?” Jimmy asked, looking to John.

He did. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

+++

“Hah!” Anthony Prescott said aloud, alone in his home’s detached garage. He’d assembled a new pipe bomb roughly triple the size of the one he’d made for school. May 15, the day he was to have lit up Mulberry High was over. Inside the four-inch, schedule 40 PVC was enough explosive gunpowder and odd screws and nails to disintegrate a house, or a wad of people a hundred thick.

That dreadful, terrible day, May 15, after for whatever reason he could not now recall, he asked the principal to take him home where he washed his face of his black make-up and then mowed the lawn like a dutiful son. His parents arriving home from work in the same car, both working at the same plant with close enough shifts to share a ride, were quick to acknowledge Anthony’s work.

“Now get off your butt and mow the back,” his father said. “And wash your face.” The face washing add-on was reflexive, a nearly every-day recitation, this time without even looking. “Weren’t you going to get a haircut this week?” his mother chimed.

Anthony’s cloud reappeared over and around him. With a deep breath, he sucked in its familiar stench, comfortable with its disgust.

The school opportunity past, his access now forever denied, his mind raced across possible venues: the movie theater, the mall, a church. It would be simple. Attach a leather carry strap handle as if it was a case of some sort. Drill holes in one end to hold the tips of fishing rods. Hah! It’d fool anybody. Hah! Wash his face, get a regular shirt, and no one would stop him. Even if they thought to, it would be too late. Heroes would be the first to die.

“Could he detonate two?” he wondered.